Post by jameskresnik on Jan 23, 2012 19:48:54 GMT -5
With one completed novel draft in the bag, I've just gotten serious about the editing part of this job.
I've tried to rewrite the first chapter, but I think need some serious help.
I'm considering approaching an editor, but I'm not sure if I even know what I don't know.
Feel free to tear this first apart, and thank you for your time and effort:
Chapter 1: Alone in the Darkness
“Did you hear that?” Esther muttered, almost dismissively “Trucks. Heavy. About thirty of them.”
Josh pulled out his binoculars and scanned the horizon, sweeping the barren ground and the cold blue sky for movement. The only thing he saw were barren ground, trees in the distance and birds, brown hawks, to be exact. He noticed that Esther had the better hearing, but he didn't know it was that good. “Let's go,” Josh said. “We've got to report this.”
Esther continued pulling at the wild tubers underfoot and made an irritated sigh. “Okay,” she said as she shook the dirt off spuds. “A few more,” she calmly stated, “Ma will get mad if I don't bring in enough food and that means the next time we're out here, you will pull more for your share.” She deliberately squatted and put the last tuber in her knapsack, leaning so Josh could see what her modest breasts could offer, hoping to throw his focus for a moment.
Josh noticed Esther, but he continued to keep a wary eye on the horizon of the dirt road leading away from their Survivalist Settlement. For some reason, Esther wore new shorts and a tighter t-shirt than she usually liked. For some reason, she liked going outside the wire with him. They did have a lot of nice talks, and joked a lot, and he wasn't too hard on the eyes. His kinky jet black locks, light green eyes and dark brown skin – a shade lighter than hers – positively glowed on days like this. I though he would be more relaxed outside the fence, Esther thought as she tightened the last bag. Either way, it's good that he's serious today. It's very good.
Esther's mind snapped back to attention. Josh did have a reputation as a slacker, but he was as skilled a tracker and rifleman as any other Trainee in the Settlement. Still gripping the grub bag she trained her ears into the air and placed her right forearm flat on the ground. She confirmed the number of trucks - they were all ordinary trucks, no armored vehicles as escort. This was unusual for Collective forces. The trucks were at least thirty kilometers away, moving slowly toward their territory.
However, no matter what Ma, Pa or even the Elders themselves demanded, she wasn't going to spring up like a hare every tome some random truck or lifter approached the Settlement. And yet, almost instinctively, she checked her webbing, filed a mental note on the weight of her load and the effective distance and stopping power of the rounds in her Trainee issued .45.
Josh couldn't see anything, but after a while he did could smell the fumes and hear a faint clacking of the diesel engines drifting over the fresh air and water from the river that was running through the Settlement. “Diesel, blood, and medicine.” he whispered quietly.
He could also smell Esther, and remembered how mad Ma got when orders were not carried out precisely. He would remember Ester standing at crisp attention, and never complaining about being yelled at, or called a disappointment, or worse, a traitor to her genes. She would simply flash a serenely warm smile which smothered Ma's anger like gravy over a tuber. He felt sorely tempted to ignore the trucks and just talk about nothing a few minutes more, more like the days when it was his turn to pick tubers. He did like her smell.
“Have you ever been scared Es?” Josh asked in a nearly inaudible whisper. “I mean, you've never been intimidated even when we had to race up the rocks.”
“I never thought about it much,” Esther mumbled as she ran over her field calculations by rote. “Or I never try to think about it.”
Esther noticed that during the entire exchange, Joshua never turned away from the direction of the threat, despite any conceivable threat being at least thirty kilometers away. She laughed a bit inside, amused at Josh's new found earnestness.
Esther switched on her brain radio and broadcast her assigned return code. Joshua pulled up out of his crouch and shouldered his rifle, though he already realized that from her breathing, heart-rate and position that she was ready to pull back to the Settlement.
“Ready,” Joshua whispered while signaling with his right hand.
Esther nodded and she dashed off, leaping nearly thirty feet at a time. Josh followed, flying over rocks and between trees at speed, neither missing a single footing up the steep slope on their path.
There was no road or trail on this approach to the Settlement. In the winter, a hemp rope might be stretched out to help the younger Trainees, because even the most skilled trainee could fall to their deaths in twenty inches of snow up a 40 percent graded incline. Ester recalled Sasha, a stout young 13 year old Trainee caught in a blizzard outside the wire three winters ago. It took almost a day to remove him from the snow, and provide for his second burial.
Josh, feeling strangely eager, did everything by the book on this climb – modulating his heart rate and blood pressure, muscle chemicals, metabolism, respiration and instinctively calculating each and every foot fall and limb movement down to the centimeter. He also keep to his training, maintaining his peripheral vision just so and keeping his head on 'swivel' to look for threats to his flank. He almost wanted to chuckle, as any possible threat was so far away as to make this a rather ridiculous training exercise.
He again noticed Esther for meters ahead. She was moving faster, and not even trying to stay with him. Esther was taking a riskier line around the tress and boulders, planting her boots on looser, less sure-footed rocks. He could see more of her legs than usual, which made him note the reduced blood flow to his mind and the elevation in endorphins, which he nervously noted were never good for concentration.
My line is better, Joshua thought, and he could have raced her, putting that theory to the test, but instead, he held back to see Esther’s brown legs and smell her auburn hair, shiny with sweat and sweet with lavender. It was not just frowned upon, but downright dangerous for a trainee to wear fragrances, because it could give away their scent, but some of the Trainees - the more rebellious types anyway – were given a small amount of leeway, to stay sane. The problem was, Esther was not normally the type to do such things.
Esther almost slipped on a slick rock and her cranium came within inches of a tree limb. Whoa! She thought with a a small tinge of excitement as she felt the rush of endorphins traveling to her cerebral cortex. She wanted more, but moving at thirty kilometers an hour, she didn't want to throw her attention any more on such a risky line. She could hear Josh's footfalls behind her. That's funny, he's usually the one doing things like this, she thought as she barreled upwards.
As Esther reached the top of the wash and could clearly see the Settlement watchtower was flashing a coded signal from its height. It was, by far the tallest thing in the entire Settlement. Unlike the squat, square adobe buildings of the village, it was almost monumental. Built directly into the side of the mountain that cradled thee sides of the village, it held a commanding view of the mountain range far into the horizon. Its design, like every building in the village, was made of either adobe or smooth, sharp stone, but as a Guardian facility it was virtually unadorned with color. The domed top of the tower contained an an array of sensors that could detect everything from radio waves to x-rays. It was connected to seismic sensors capable of recording every footfall for three hundred kilometers and optical telescopes and radar capable of detecting every orbiting object in the observable sky. Sometimes one could see graceful, birdlike recon drones catapulted off the top ledge.
Carla and Tim were the usual Guardians in charge of the watchtower and would pull twelve hours shifts, rarely giving up the chairs, even for weekends or feasts. They were sometimes order to sit sit with an high ranking trainee. Esther remembered her visit there fondly.
After Carla gave a breathless introduction and a brief run down of the sensor board the Guardian sat in special chair, wordlessly engaging in direct mental communication with the array. Ester sat in a hard metal folding chair and like Carla, didn't speak, sleep, eat or defecate for the entire twelve hour shift. Esther was stuck in a stuffy room, looking at the 2D displays. But, when night came, Esther looked up at the sky sensor and counted orbiting satellites, and a large number of small asteroids falling into bright orange shooting stars.
It was Tim's usual evening shift. He observed a line of thirty trucks thirty kilometers in the distance, which what seemed like refugees. The drivers were dejected, bedraggled men; some wearing dirty Collective militia uniform coats. No weapons were anywhere in sight. Central Authority Military trucks full of non-soldiers, and with no armed escort. What could this be about?, Tim thought warily as he dashed off an observation report into his mental terminal.
Within seconds he filled all the required reports complete with the sensor data to the CIC. He leaned back to watch two trainees dashing up the side of the ridge, with snacks in had. He took special note of Esther glancing up at the tower. She's cute, she's smart, and she has food, what more could a man want? She's a shoo-in for Guardian so I'll be seeing her soon. Tim chuckled, then took note of the wiry brown lad running next to her, his locks trailing behind him. Oh, and there's the class clown. Oh! He looking pretty serious today. Now, I wonder what got into that boy? He chuckled to himself again. They're outside the wire together all the time now. I wonder how they manged to swing that? Tim with a healthy chuckle before moving onto more important matters.
'The Wire' isn't actually a wire fence. Tim heard was that there was a wire fence at one time, but there is no need for fence when you have at your disposal several types of hidden Tesla coils, remote controlled smart mines and targeted beam weapons trained on the entire forward parameter. Tim gave a silent command to disarm the defenses in their path.
Joshua trailed, using the old, reliable line seemingly every other trainee use on that approach. “Mental note,” Josh mumbled to himself. “Don't do what everybody else does.”
Esther, with her substantially more dangerous line, was four-tenths of a second faster all-the-while carrying a 30 kilogram sack of fungus. Nevertheless, Joshua almost felt like cheering his own personal record time. Following their standing orders, Josh, with the smell of lavender still in his nose, ran to the main building to alert the security building, while Esther ran straight to the Trainee Office to deliver her cargo.
Ma Sue was a tall, thick, blond woman, at least 150 centimeters. She had long, elegant fingers, long muscular legs, broad shoulders and a long neck which Esther, and seemingly every other female trainee, secretly desired. For a Guardian she had unusually long hair, which was kept high and tight by a dazzling array of loops and braids. She was dressed in the standard issue Training Guardian outfit of tan duck jeans and a crisp T-shirt. She was leaning back, idly cleaning her fingers and reading a report on her desk, her sidearm and automatic rifle visible in the open weapons locker.
Ma Sue placed her hand firmly on her desk and gave her a firm, Guardian issued scowl, complete with piercing eyes. Esther noticed that the bunk behind her desk was, unusually, not yet made. A pot of tea on the desk was still warm. Esther glanced at the digital reader, and she could make out “Approaching Units” on the display before Ma glanced down and discretely moved it out of view. She then directed her gray gaze right at Esther.
“Report darlin'. What did you see?”
“Heavy truck, at least thirty, Ma. Moving slowly, around twenty-five kilometers an hour. Eight kiloliters from our perimeter.” Esther calmly reported through a sweaty brow. “I didn't hear any lifters though. They might just be refugees passing through.” Esther made a tight-lipped smile and breathed to remain clam. Esther smiled, breathed, and tried to remain clam, expecting the now common dressing down for interjecting her opinion.
Instead, Ma sighed and shrugged. “I suppose you're right, but we can't be too cautious these days.” Suddenly Ma tensed her jaw and let out a heavy sigh. “Now concentrate, did you notice anything besides trucks over that damn perfume you're wearing?”
“Blood,” Esther said curiously. “I smelled blood and medicine.”
Ma, shrugging back into her chair in seeming defeat unclenched her jaw and smirked as she looked at the bag propped over Esther shoulder. “My goodness girl. How many tubers did you find today? Thank you sweetheart and give that to the supply team right away.”
Esther breathed a small sigh of relief inside, confident that, for the fist time in a while, she passed the quiz. “Thanks Ma,” she said with a tight lipped smile as she turned for the door.
Quite the wunderkind. She's a good trainee but I wonder what that girl things of me sometimes? Sue thought. Ma Sue's warm feelings for the girl immediately shifted to the report she just finished reading. She made a mental inventory of the weapons in her locker. The trucks might be refugees after all, but why would so many Savages make a beeline directly for a Survivalist Settlement? Even fleeing monkeys know the only way to get a paid escort was to contact by radio, in town. Getting to close to a Settlement or camp is a good way to get killed.
But then again, what reason would anyone have a reason to attack? This valley held nothing for Savages but cold and hot death, which the Savages had plenty of in their own sad world. I've still have Trainees to take care of. Ma thought. Happy to let the Elders figure this one out, Sue. Picking up the virtual screen, she mentally flipped off the situation report and started updating the trainer list and class schedule.
Joshua made his way from the fence line through a dry irrigation ditch awaiting the spring thaw to feed the just planted crops. He leaped out of the ditch, running past a dozen fleece clad Traders in the fields, busily monitoring the automated planting robots and obviously enjoying the unusually mild early spring.
Joshua looked across the other side of the field and saw a speck of Esther in the distance, dashing toward here assigned destination. The farming Traders looked up but didn't bother to speak. Once they realized the fast mover was a mere Trainee they quickly returned to their work. A Trader's two year old husky joined in the sprint, barking and snarling, but after a few hundred meters, the pup realized that he couldn't quite keep up with Joshua and dejectedly went back to his afternoon nap. He passed the greenhouses where he noticed a group of seven-year-old Trainees handling tomatoes and squashes. He could hear the rifle reports and handgun pops in the distance as the Training Guardians opened another late afternoon marksmanship class.
Josh sprinted through the brown gate of the bustling Guardian Quarters. Guardians, of all shapes and sizes were filing out of the huge communal residence. Some were half-immersed in camouflaged, black armored suits. Some were wearing form-fitting hard suits complete with arm-cuffs, pistols and auto cannons. All were heading straight into waiting armored trucks which would take them on patrol along the 25 kilometer patrol area or ferry them to the airstrip where the anti-gravity lifters would suck them in and dump them on their assigned contracts: either escort duty for refugees or escorting Trader convoys kilometers away from the Settlement to trade with the Savages, or other Settlements.
The Intel Officer he had to report to after patrols would ask him details about a particular Guardian's from her eye color to the amount of dirt under her fingernails to her ruck and weapons load, and which would be more efficient for escort or patrol duty. Failure to answer correctly usually resulted in a long night on a hard truck bench with a bunch of jerkhole Guardians watching rocks and mountain goats. I will NOT sit in that damn truck tonight, Joshua said to himself.
Joshua glanced at every Guardian’s face that he passed, picking up every detail he could. He did notice that they were all a bit more tense and guarded than usual. His eyes crossed the gaze of another Guardian, a tall silver-haired man with the lanky muscular build of a mountain lion and narrow brown eyes older than their time. Joshua did not talk to this Guardian before, but that didn't stop the Guardian from twisting his rusty steel face into impish grin and calling out, “3:35.” Another, short dark female Guardian in his squad who he did know as Angel called out, “SECOND PLACE!” The rest of the squad barked in unison, “FIRST LOSER!”
“Dammit,” Josh muttered, and pushed his faltering legs harder, running faster than he ever thought he could. It was now three minutes and twenty five seconds past the initial report from the tower and twenty five seconds from Josh being subjected to another tedious truck ride with those jerkholes. One time, shorty after they were first paired for patrol, Joshua complained bitterly to Esther, who rolled her dark blue eyes and replied. “Guardians don't always get the privilege of harassing Traders, so they relish pouring on Trainees whenever they get a chance.”
“Even you?” He asked half-joking.
“Especially me stupid.” She muttered with a playfully sad and irritated sigh.
“Whatever,” Joshua muttered with a devilish grin as he changed paths and pushed straight through the compound, forcing several Guardians to dodge him as he bounded walls and over their heads. He dashed up a wall, leaped on an armored carrier and took to the roofs, feeling the rush of the wind as he ran along the ledge of the building then dropped back down to the street, forcing a squad of Guardians to dodge as he heaped over their heads. For the briefest of moments, he realized that at around thirty kilometers an hour he could have killed himself and the person he hit, which would have made him laugh at the absolute hilarity of dying that way, assuming he had any breath left. He realized, that was unlikely to happen as Guardians are never going to allow themselves to ever get killed by 70 Kilograms of flying Trainee.
Joshua continued overriding his 'auto set' biological processes, choosing to push more adrenaline to his legs and max out his oxygen flow to his legs and cardiovascular, but his muscles had red-lined. His legs began to shut down under the force of agonizing pain from the excess lactic acid. Worse yet, he started getting dizzy. He cursed his body and pushed harder, completely shutting down all non-essential body functions and channeling all available resources. To stay focused, he worked some eyeball calculations based on the distance between light poles and figured that he was doing at least 35 kilometers an hour as he approached his destination, the Guardian Administrative Intelligence building. Joshua just knew that body would hate him later, but he scared some Guardians and made it on time, so it was totally worth it.
Joshua noticed how hot, cramped and stale and just plain old the GAI building was. It was already buzzing with activity; bustling as if an alert was issued, but there was no change on the alert status of the towering main display. He studied the screen for the few seconds that he had left, noting the position of every mission, some stretching far over the mountain ranges and toward the western cost which was home to the Savage nation the Guardians called The Collective. To the East, there was little to no activity from convoys, but the The room was tight and dark, with rows of chairs and desks and Guardian Intelligence staff working in cramped quarters. Each GI staffer is fed an optical data stream being fed and analyzed by a quantum computer located somewhere deep in the base of the mountains. Josh always imagined that it was located right next to the cold-fusion reactor that powered everything and right above everything else Elders wanted to stay secret.
Joshua recalled the time he asked Pa why the GAI stayed in the old Guardian Administration building when they could have picked any of the new buildings. Pa chuckled, shook his graying, dredlocked head and said, "One of the Elders walked in one day and was bowled over by how cramped that place was. He asked the Lead Guardian every few years if the GA wanted a new building, and the lead Guardian would in turn ask the staff. Everyone, myself included said 'Oh no LG, we're quite happy here! Awesome. Everything five by five.' We were always trying to look tough. Haha!
One day a coolant line snapped and flooded the entire basement and not two days later - regardless of the Trader's best efforts - it began to stink something awful! An Elder stopped by and was so bowled over by the stench he ordered that the GA was moving to a new building weather we Liked. It. Or. Not." the old man said poking the cedar wood table with every syllable.
"So we got that there spanking new building, but the Guardian
Intelligence nerds made some noise about moving the computers and
sensors and all that jazz. Of course, we knew it enough to know
that could be easily done, but the Elders kept the old building
up and the GA got new quarters. I think the Elders left the nerds
there because even with their infinite wisdom couldn't' get them
to budge from their seats. Heck, they can suppress their
senses for twelve straight hours so they didn't care!" Pa shook
his missing brown finger in the ear his finger in the air. Lucky
dogs!" then he chuckled and finished his beer.
Josh remembered being more impressed by Pa's sudden candidness than the drawn-out story.
Joshua limped into the building's command center, which seemed like the entrance to a slightly bigger cave. The moldy smell was still there, but it wasn't nearly as bad as the main room. The lead on-duty - a slightly thickening, muddled-aged women with short back air and penetrating black eyes - smiled and enthusiastically waved him in. Joshua's heart sank. Ms. Samantha was on duty.
“Good Afternoon Ms. Samantha,” Josh muttered, cringing inside.
“So my boy, what did you see?” Sandra asked.
“At least thirty trucks around twelve to fifteen kilometers out at this point, Ma'am. There were no lifters or armored vehicles.
“Were you there? How can you be certain of that, Trainee?” Ms. Samantha said with a raised eyebrow. “Wow!” Ms. Samantha said as she leaned back in the old ergonomic chair while almost effortlessly using her mental skills to feed the data to the computer. “You made it here on time for the last four tries. That's quite the improvement! You're finally coming around Trainee. I like what that girl has done for you!”
Unlike all of the other nerds, Samantha talked. . . a lot. And, she talked about anything and everything, everyone and anyone, anytime the mood struck her, which was every time. Josh wanted to roll his eyes back at the inanity of it all, but from experience, knew that Samantha would notice it, make more irritating jabs and ask more uncomfortable, and unnecessary, questions. Ms. Samantha wasn't exactly famous for her tact, but nonetheless, she could extract information from virtually everyone she talked to.
Ms. Samantha stopped inputting text leaned forward in her chair, cupped both hands under her chin and flashed a feline like smile. “How is it going with your new girlfriend?” She said as her grin turned from warm into mischievous.
“Um, well, Ma'am, I don't have a girlfriend,” Josh sputtered while re-routing the tell-tale flow of blood to his cheeks he felt coming. “I'm not sure what you mean, Ma'am.”
“Oh, you can't hide things like that from me!” she said excitedly as she slapped her knee in certainly and laughed. I'm a Nerd, I earn my meal by knowing these things. Heck, we let that girl rig the hunt selection for that reason! And you're all excited every time you go out with her. I always wondered when you two will mate, son. Or is she keeping her distance? You know what? I could find out for you!”
Ms. Samantha watched the exhausted, brown boy make an nearly imperceptible shutter for the briefest moment, then quickly regain his composure. For a seasoned interrogator like Ms. Samantha, it was rather impressive to witness this display of psychological control in a fifteen-year-old Trainee. Was there really something to the scheme the the Ma and Pa were pulling? she thought. The boy is sharper than he appears and even I can't get a solid read on Esther. It all seems kind of risky. She made no indication of this to the boy whatsoever laughed out loud and continued her debriefing.
Ms. Samantha cupped her hands and sighed "You were always such a slacker in your training until six months ago. I thought for sure you would leave this village right after your right of passage. Then you go out tuber hunting with Esther and you're a whole different person!
You stand tall and perform well on all your drills now. She's really
rubbing off on you!" Ms. Samantha waited a few minutes, but got no noticeable reaction from the Trainee. “Well your debriefing is over, boy. You're free to go to supper tonight."
“Thank you Ma'am,” Josh muttered and with great relief, turning for the door.
"If you need any advice on the ladies, give me a holler!" she
yelled while putting her thumb and pinky finger like a phone and
beaming the warmest smile.
This time, Josh couldn't resist acting out his irritation as he visibly grimaced and plodded out into the late afternoon bustle in the Guardian compound. “Six months,” he muttered to himself. “Only six months until I'm out of this fish pond.” It was only months until the Rite Of Passage that would determine whether a Trainee would be a Guardian or a Trader. “It doesn't make much difference to me,” he said to himself with feigned resolution. The Traders are just as important, if not more important as the Guardians. They feed everyone, make the tools, manufacture the weapons, build the housing engineer the infrastructure. They make all the items the Settlement trades with the Savages. They don't have to follow orders to kill or die and they don't have to spend bitterly cold nights in trucks and lifters looking for bogeymen and shooting at or taking fire from other sapients. Their lives are incredibly spartan and highly. They are only allowed a hand full of personal grooming items, have absolutely no privacy and cannot go into the Trader part of the village except to perform police duty – a job that was not in high demand. The best a Guardian can hope for is either a job defending refugee trains or guarding Traders executing trade deals outside of the wire.
She's going to be one of them, of course, Joshua thought bitterly. Esther was a splendidly talented warrior, “a real natural,' he overheard some Guardians say one night when he was stuck on patrol with them in another barren, smelly quarter-ton assault truck. He had even heard that she was given training with a power armor – nothing any other trainee had been exposed to except in a classroom. The fact that her fame had spread to the Guardian ranks was proof enough that she was an 'in', sure to be assigned to the Guardian ranks. He looked up toward the sky, taking in the setting sun. Me, on the other hand, he said with a contented smirk. They're right. I'm just a slacker. Forget them, I don't care. I don't care about these people.
Then he thought of Esther.
Josh could remember exactly when they went together on their first tuber gathering. At twelve, they were paired up with a random kid from another hooch and told to find buried fungus. The Trainers explained that this, like seemingly everything else they did, was good for building Guardian skills, and good for learning the land if they became Traders. So every afternoon, without fail, a pair of poor souls would have to go out and find enough tubers to make good sized servings for the entire Trainee class. Sure they taste good enough, Josh thought as he nursed spasms in both hips, but you get real sick of them when you have to go through this. Well, unless it's with...
The setting sun was shining right in Esther’s face. The poor little thing was beginning it's agonizing descent behind the mountains in the distance giving away quickly to the cool wind and it's far more mundane sensations. Sitting on the porch railing outside of Josh's hooch, she swung her bare legs over and over again, looking at her heavy hiking boots and the goosebumps emerging from her slender legs. She got lost in the motion of her own feet for a while, hoping that Joshua didn't get dragged out on patrol again. He did manage to make it the last four reports, she thought as she made as she drew in a deep breath, interrupting the shallow ones. The seventy or so times it was her turn, she had never been pulled out on patrol, except for two times, and that was to see what patrol was really like.
The first time, it was a group of young Guardians in a surprisingly cramped truck. They kept very still and quiet. She couldn't make a peep for hours as the group drove around in hours looking for anything that remotely looked like a threat. She though it was all rather sad to see a group so wound up over literally nothing.
The second time, she was given a power suit and settled in with a group of grizzled veterans. The power suit looked bulky and hard to handle, but it was far more comfortable, and better smelling, than the truck. The vets told stories of shootouts with Imperium Cavaliers, vetting out Collective spies and soldiers from civilian convoys. By the time the night was over, they had used those suits to bag a dear, a wolf four rabbits, the third one with a drunk hand and fourteen totally not regulation bottles of beer. No Elder material in that bunch, Esther thought drearily by the next morning.
A couple of Traders, what appeared to be a married couple, rolled by in a large delivery truck and waived lazily out of the windows. They could be my birth providers, for all I know, she thought while attempting a graceful waive and a smile. She could only vaguely remember the day she became a Trainee. She did remember crying a lot, she did remember her mother's smell and touch, but could never remember earlier things and no matter how hard she tried. She couldn't remember her mother's face. The only thing she kept from that day were those fuzzy memories and her given name, Esther.
A song started over the PA speakers on the light polls. Esther recognized it as one of the regular patriotic songs that cleared the Elder's approval. She stood up as ordered put her hand on her heart and sung along as she and the other Trainees were told. It was sung in a haunting tone, which clashed with the rather clunky lyrics.
The Elders will guide
the Guardians will fight;
the Traders will stand;
for our hallowed land.
We will always be free;
we fight and succeed;
so we can be free;
peace and unity!
At the end she furrowed her brow and returned to her seat on the rail. She could sing the bars of every corny patriotic and faith song backward and forward, then die of stultifying boredom.
Every day it was the same: Wake up at 05:00, Run and Drill from 05:30 to 06:30; Breakfast from 07:00 to 07:30; Personal Cleaning from 07:30 to 08:00; Academic lessons taught in individual; virtual learning chambers from 08:00 until 12:00; afternoon meal or kitchen assistant from 12:00 until 12:45; kitchen clean up from 12:45 to 13:00; arts, music, writing, first aid, or other field and practical training from select Traders from 13:00 until 17:00; private time until the evening meal from 18:00 to 18:45 and study time from 19:00 until bed down at 20:00.
Saturdays was – depending on Ma and Pa's moods - either mechanics and engineering, or live fire and maneuver exercises. Sundays was free time except for slackers who were often stuck with extra PT - Physical Training - or Kitchen duty instead of the usual lounging in quarters, playing sports or sneaking into the woods caves and unused quarters to simulate or perform mating. If a Trainee were 'lucky' instead of the weekday afternoon tasks, they would be paired up and go tuber hunting.
At least it beats the routine, she thought a first. She would use whatever free time she had to help whoever asked. Esther never got praise directly, no one did, but she knew she was doing well, for what it was worth.
She remembered the first day she was paired up on a tuber hunt with Josh. By all accounts and observations, he was a total slacker: terrible grades, flippant and dismissive to superiors and was so slow on the tuber runs that he rode with the grunts as if it was his only job.
It was her turn to watch and she went about things in the usual way while maintaining a satisfactory silence. Half an hour into the work, Josh pointed his spade in the air with commanding authority and said in a grunting, wheezy voice, “Well I'll tell you girl!” Josh continued his exclamation, wiggling the spade over his head, “During the last drought we sleep on the bare dirt and just eat rocks, rocks I tell ya' and we would shoot Savages and escort settlers and take down raiding armored cars with nothin' but slingshots and the rocks in our stomachs!” Josh stood up with exaggerated sharpness, put his hands on his hips and leaned forward into the imaginary Trainee. “That's why I produce so much spittle Trainee when I get in your face. You need lots of spit to digest rocks!” He turned to Esther and let out an impish grin and said quietly, “Well Es, I think I would be pretty good Guardian Don't you?”
Esther remembered quietly chuckling. A group of thirteen-year-old male Trainees passed by, giving her a quizzical glance. She only replied with another disarming smile. They waived back with great relief and moved on. Esther squinted into the deep red rays of the setting sun. She closed her eyes, enjoying its last measure of warmth, and for a moment, tuning out everything.
“Es!” a girl's voice asked. She tuned back into her sense. She didn't need to open her eyes to see it was Marie across the road. She could sense another person approaching. Judging by her smell, it was Consuela. Great. She thought with a tinge of guilt. Esther turned and with and half-smiled, “Hey sisters!” with standard-issue friendliness. It was indeed who she thought it was. She felt a strange pang of disappointment.
Marie jumped on the rail with Esther while Consuela leaned on the same rail, crossing here arms and tapping her foot with playful impatience.
Esther thought Consuela - petite, chubby face, ghostly white skin; light brown, almost red, eyes and pale white hair, always clean and and very curly - was the most striking example of genetic manipulation ever devised. None of it offered any survival advantage she could think of, except perhaps getting her bounced out of Guardian duty. She had seen all kinds of hair colors and eye colors among her peers and the Guardians but, when their first met, she would often hang out with Consuela out of sheer amazement. She often wore home-made ribbons in her hair when not in the field, which Esther liked and copied.
Marie right down to her body, was no-nonsense, medium build, light skin, average height, and the typically lean and muscular build of a Survivalist female. Her Breeders definitely played it straight down the middle. She wore her over-washed black hair cropped to her shoulders, hazel eyes often hidden by a data visor, even when it is cold like today, a sweat suit perfectly suited for the approaching chill, a temple placed AI computer, and perpetually gnarled fingernails.
“Are you waiting for Josh?” Consuela said, eyes affixed in giddy curiosity as she popped up to a handstand on the railing. “So are you going to spend this Sunday with him?” she asked without waiting for a follow up.
“I take it that you just got out of evening drill,” Esther said, trying not to betray her feelings one way or another, but Esther knew the jig was already up. Consuela knew, and soon every Trainee in the Settlement would know.
“I can neither confirm nor deny,” Esther said with an comically contrived aloofness.
Marie leaned closer to Esther, pointing at a blushing cheek. “People think you've rigged the selection for the tuber jobs,” she said with bookish authoritativeness.
Consuela vaulted off the railing planting herself right in front of Esther “Of course that's nonsense but you know how the rumors spread.”
Esther shrugged and asked with feigned irritation “I thought rumors spread through you, Consuela.” Esther sighed, “No, I was asked by the Trainee Chiefs to change pairs, that's all. I mean, it makes some sense, but it's just odd they would do this so close to the Rite of Passage.”
“There have been a lot of odd things happening lately,” Marie said with a worried expression. “There's no change in alert level. Now, I can usually crack the lower security level documents, but the security has been tightened so much today that I'm afraid to even try.”
Esther, relieved that she managed to change the topic of conversation, asked “So you don't want to ride the truck again, huh?”
“No!” Marie said with a twisted face. “It's dirty and awful and you have to stay awake all night with those smelly drunks chasing down varmints and noises. It's dirty!”
“Dirty girl!” Consuela muttered between giggles.
“You eat dirt,” Marie muttered back before gnawing on her thumb.
“It's alright Marie,” Esther said in her most soothing voice. “I'll help you tonight. We're here for each other, right?”
Marie, focusing intermittently on the ground, nodded.
Consuela cocked an eyebrow. “So my dear friend” she asked with a smirk, “when are you going to ask him?”
“Ask who, what?” Esther replied with feign innocence.
The setting sun gently warmed the right side of Josh's weary body. He could barely feel this legs, but the had recovered just enough muscle glucose to grant him a slow jog back, and with a smile, he was happy to return home. Esther had agreed to meet him for dinner at his hooch after the dispatch, assuming he would make it back. He wound his way past the Traders in the low hum of their beat-up electric wheeled trucks. The Traders were bundled up in paper thin hot suits and jackets, transporting food to the barracks for the night. Somewhere, in each of those trays, is a small portion of Esther and Josh's haul. For a moment, he felt a small tinge of pride. We're almost there, he thought confidentially.
“Can you believe this!” Esteban whispered to Franklin while peering through the half drawn curtain of the darkened bunk house. He decided to quiet down and send a mentally generated, wireless message to Franklin. “We now have three of the hottest trainees sitting right outside of our door. Cut your terminal and get over here!”
Franklin quietly closed the part of his brain containing the digital terminal, rolled and dropped out of his bunk as quietly as a falling leaf. He sneaked and crouched right behind Esteban on the ceiling, quieting his heart beat, reducing his breathing and taking steps to suppress every vibration and scent he could possibly produce. He knew that he wasn't very good at sneaking up on girls, who generally have better smell and was afraid he would miss out on whatever Esteban was going on about. Like Esteban, he relied mostly on his distance and the composite shelf below the window to mask his heat signature. He tapped in Morse on Esteban’s shoulder.
“Consuela is so beautiful. Over.” He tapped.
Esteban tapped on his knee,”More cute than beautiful, stop. Don't be corny, stop.”
Franklin frowned, but moving his focus from Marie's small breasts and Esther's lean, wiry body, compared to Consuela's short stature and large breasts along with her startling pale blue hair and shining eyes, he couldn't dispute Esteban's analysis. Nevertheless, they were all beautiful to him, and though he had lots of interesting prospects, he still didn't have a dance partner for The Social Event the Trainers were going on about. Maybe it's time to get serious, he though to himself.
Franklin had the best ears of the bunch, likely a product of his birth provider's genetic programing. Moreover, he could read lips, a product of his specialized recon training. Even as Marie and Esther dropped their voices to near inaudible vocalizations, he could still hear Consuela's lips form the words. “Alright, let's skip that part. What do you actually think of him?
Him? Franklin thought. Could they mean Josh?
Esteban's left fingertip rose to meet Frank's blonde forehead. “What did Consuela say? Over.” He tapped with emphasis on Frank's skull. “Did Esther say anything about me? Stop.” “I think she's talking bout the tuber hunt. Over.”
“I think she's talking about the tuber hunt. Over.” Franklin replied, suppressing dumping his rage into the bile emerging from his stomach.
In one smooth motion, Esther stood on the railing, then, in one smooth motion, alternatively lifted her feet, vaulting off the railing and planting both feet solidly on the ground. She knew the knuckleheads in Josh's bunk were up to something. They didn't come out, and they were too quiet. She tried to look over Consuela, ignoring her foot tapping and folded arms.
“Earth to Es,” Marie said wistfully as she raised her hand to Esther. “You know, you don't have to be here if you don't want to be.”
Esther just gave another relaxed smile and look up at the inky darkness of a moonless night. She felt a knot on her stomach and could feel her legs give ever so slightly. Darn, the Trainee is right. She thought as she heard foot steps from down the street. She could tell from the way the foot fell, the squish of the rubber, and the pattern of the gait that it was him.
A bump and crash almost startled Josh as he approached the bunk house. From two blocks away, he could hear Consuela yelp, Franklin rubbing his head and Esteban hitting Franklin on a meaty part of his body. Shit, those idiots, Josh thought angrily. He knew that Marie would thrash the both of them for spying on the girls.
Okay, Esther is there.
Okay, everyone knows now.
Okay, time to take control of the situation.
He pushed his weary legs one last time, leaping on the roof of one of the residence houses, then another, then another until he landed in front of his bunkhouse in a clumsy plant, grazing a wide-eyed Consuela and a snarling Marie. “How is everyone doing tonight?” He said with laughing indifference, hands on aching hips. “It is so great to see people I don't get to see everyday! Is everyone looking forward to dinner? I know I am. How about we find some good seats tonight?”
Josh reached quickly and gently around Marie's shoulder focusing his green eyes longingly and intensely into hers, his thin locks brushing her shoulder. “Or we can always eat outside!” Marie could feel herself blushing, uncontrollably. What does Esther see in this clown? I could smell her all over him. Marie thought, slowly, but surely unclencing her fists.
Esther whistled an irrelevant tune, and turned the other way, feeling slightly irritated, all the same.
I've tried to rewrite the first chapter, but I think need some serious help.
I'm considering approaching an editor, but I'm not sure if I even know what I don't know.
Feel free to tear this first apart, and thank you for your time and effort:
Chapter 1: Alone in the Darkness
“Did you hear that?” Esther muttered, almost dismissively “Trucks. Heavy. About thirty of them.”
Josh pulled out his binoculars and scanned the horizon, sweeping the barren ground and the cold blue sky for movement. The only thing he saw were barren ground, trees in the distance and birds, brown hawks, to be exact. He noticed that Esther had the better hearing, but he didn't know it was that good. “Let's go,” Josh said. “We've got to report this.”
Esther continued pulling at the wild tubers underfoot and made an irritated sigh. “Okay,” she said as she shook the dirt off spuds. “A few more,” she calmly stated, “Ma will get mad if I don't bring in enough food and that means the next time we're out here, you will pull more for your share.” She deliberately squatted and put the last tuber in her knapsack, leaning so Josh could see what her modest breasts could offer, hoping to throw his focus for a moment.
Josh noticed Esther, but he continued to keep a wary eye on the horizon of the dirt road leading away from their Survivalist Settlement. For some reason, Esther wore new shorts and a tighter t-shirt than she usually liked. For some reason, she liked going outside the wire with him. They did have a lot of nice talks, and joked a lot, and he wasn't too hard on the eyes. His kinky jet black locks, light green eyes and dark brown skin – a shade lighter than hers – positively glowed on days like this. I though he would be more relaxed outside the fence, Esther thought as she tightened the last bag. Either way, it's good that he's serious today. It's very good.
Esther's mind snapped back to attention. Josh did have a reputation as a slacker, but he was as skilled a tracker and rifleman as any other Trainee in the Settlement. Still gripping the grub bag she trained her ears into the air and placed her right forearm flat on the ground. She confirmed the number of trucks - they were all ordinary trucks, no armored vehicles as escort. This was unusual for Collective forces. The trucks were at least thirty kilometers away, moving slowly toward their territory.
However, no matter what Ma, Pa or even the Elders themselves demanded, she wasn't going to spring up like a hare every tome some random truck or lifter approached the Settlement. And yet, almost instinctively, she checked her webbing, filed a mental note on the weight of her load and the effective distance and stopping power of the rounds in her Trainee issued .45.
Josh couldn't see anything, but after a while he did could smell the fumes and hear a faint clacking of the diesel engines drifting over the fresh air and water from the river that was running through the Settlement. “Diesel, blood, and medicine.” he whispered quietly.
He could also smell Esther, and remembered how mad Ma got when orders were not carried out precisely. He would remember Ester standing at crisp attention, and never complaining about being yelled at, or called a disappointment, or worse, a traitor to her genes. She would simply flash a serenely warm smile which smothered Ma's anger like gravy over a tuber. He felt sorely tempted to ignore the trucks and just talk about nothing a few minutes more, more like the days when it was his turn to pick tubers. He did like her smell.
“Have you ever been scared Es?” Josh asked in a nearly inaudible whisper. “I mean, you've never been intimidated even when we had to race up the rocks.”
“I never thought about it much,” Esther mumbled as she ran over her field calculations by rote. “Or I never try to think about it.”
Esther noticed that during the entire exchange, Joshua never turned away from the direction of the threat, despite any conceivable threat being at least thirty kilometers away. She laughed a bit inside, amused at Josh's new found earnestness.
Esther switched on her brain radio and broadcast her assigned return code. Joshua pulled up out of his crouch and shouldered his rifle, though he already realized that from her breathing, heart-rate and position that she was ready to pull back to the Settlement.
“Ready,” Joshua whispered while signaling with his right hand.
Esther nodded and she dashed off, leaping nearly thirty feet at a time. Josh followed, flying over rocks and between trees at speed, neither missing a single footing up the steep slope on their path.
There was no road or trail on this approach to the Settlement. In the winter, a hemp rope might be stretched out to help the younger Trainees, because even the most skilled trainee could fall to their deaths in twenty inches of snow up a 40 percent graded incline. Ester recalled Sasha, a stout young 13 year old Trainee caught in a blizzard outside the wire three winters ago. It took almost a day to remove him from the snow, and provide for his second burial.
Josh, feeling strangely eager, did everything by the book on this climb – modulating his heart rate and blood pressure, muscle chemicals, metabolism, respiration and instinctively calculating each and every foot fall and limb movement down to the centimeter. He also keep to his training, maintaining his peripheral vision just so and keeping his head on 'swivel' to look for threats to his flank. He almost wanted to chuckle, as any possible threat was so far away as to make this a rather ridiculous training exercise.
He again noticed Esther for meters ahead. She was moving faster, and not even trying to stay with him. Esther was taking a riskier line around the tress and boulders, planting her boots on looser, less sure-footed rocks. He could see more of her legs than usual, which made him note the reduced blood flow to his mind and the elevation in endorphins, which he nervously noted were never good for concentration.
My line is better, Joshua thought, and he could have raced her, putting that theory to the test, but instead, he held back to see Esther’s brown legs and smell her auburn hair, shiny with sweat and sweet with lavender. It was not just frowned upon, but downright dangerous for a trainee to wear fragrances, because it could give away their scent, but some of the Trainees - the more rebellious types anyway – were given a small amount of leeway, to stay sane. The problem was, Esther was not normally the type to do such things.
Esther almost slipped on a slick rock and her cranium came within inches of a tree limb. Whoa! She thought with a a small tinge of excitement as she felt the rush of endorphins traveling to her cerebral cortex. She wanted more, but moving at thirty kilometers an hour, she didn't want to throw her attention any more on such a risky line. She could hear Josh's footfalls behind her. That's funny, he's usually the one doing things like this, she thought as she barreled upwards.
As Esther reached the top of the wash and could clearly see the Settlement watchtower was flashing a coded signal from its height. It was, by far the tallest thing in the entire Settlement. Unlike the squat, square adobe buildings of the village, it was almost monumental. Built directly into the side of the mountain that cradled thee sides of the village, it held a commanding view of the mountain range far into the horizon. Its design, like every building in the village, was made of either adobe or smooth, sharp stone, but as a Guardian facility it was virtually unadorned with color. The domed top of the tower contained an an array of sensors that could detect everything from radio waves to x-rays. It was connected to seismic sensors capable of recording every footfall for three hundred kilometers and optical telescopes and radar capable of detecting every orbiting object in the observable sky. Sometimes one could see graceful, birdlike recon drones catapulted off the top ledge.
Carla and Tim were the usual Guardians in charge of the watchtower and would pull twelve hours shifts, rarely giving up the chairs, even for weekends or feasts. They were sometimes order to sit sit with an high ranking trainee. Esther remembered her visit there fondly.
After Carla gave a breathless introduction and a brief run down of the sensor board the Guardian sat in special chair, wordlessly engaging in direct mental communication with the array. Ester sat in a hard metal folding chair and like Carla, didn't speak, sleep, eat or defecate for the entire twelve hour shift. Esther was stuck in a stuffy room, looking at the 2D displays. But, when night came, Esther looked up at the sky sensor and counted orbiting satellites, and a large number of small asteroids falling into bright orange shooting stars.
It was Tim's usual evening shift. He observed a line of thirty trucks thirty kilometers in the distance, which what seemed like refugees. The drivers were dejected, bedraggled men; some wearing dirty Collective militia uniform coats. No weapons were anywhere in sight. Central Authority Military trucks full of non-soldiers, and with no armed escort. What could this be about?, Tim thought warily as he dashed off an observation report into his mental terminal.
Within seconds he filled all the required reports complete with the sensor data to the CIC. He leaned back to watch two trainees dashing up the side of the ridge, with snacks in had. He took special note of Esther glancing up at the tower. She's cute, she's smart, and she has food, what more could a man want? She's a shoo-in for Guardian so I'll be seeing her soon. Tim chuckled, then took note of the wiry brown lad running next to her, his locks trailing behind him. Oh, and there's the class clown. Oh! He looking pretty serious today. Now, I wonder what got into that boy? He chuckled to himself again. They're outside the wire together all the time now. I wonder how they manged to swing that? Tim with a healthy chuckle before moving onto more important matters.
'The Wire' isn't actually a wire fence. Tim heard was that there was a wire fence at one time, but there is no need for fence when you have at your disposal several types of hidden Tesla coils, remote controlled smart mines and targeted beam weapons trained on the entire forward parameter. Tim gave a silent command to disarm the defenses in their path.
Joshua trailed, using the old, reliable line seemingly every other trainee use on that approach. “Mental note,” Josh mumbled to himself. “Don't do what everybody else does.”
Esther, with her substantially more dangerous line, was four-tenths of a second faster all-the-while carrying a 30 kilogram sack of fungus. Nevertheless, Joshua almost felt like cheering his own personal record time. Following their standing orders, Josh, with the smell of lavender still in his nose, ran to the main building to alert the security building, while Esther ran straight to the Trainee Office to deliver her cargo.
Ma Sue was a tall, thick, blond woman, at least 150 centimeters. She had long, elegant fingers, long muscular legs, broad shoulders and a long neck which Esther, and seemingly every other female trainee, secretly desired. For a Guardian she had unusually long hair, which was kept high and tight by a dazzling array of loops and braids. She was dressed in the standard issue Training Guardian outfit of tan duck jeans and a crisp T-shirt. She was leaning back, idly cleaning her fingers and reading a report on her desk, her sidearm and automatic rifle visible in the open weapons locker.
Ma Sue placed her hand firmly on her desk and gave her a firm, Guardian issued scowl, complete with piercing eyes. Esther noticed that the bunk behind her desk was, unusually, not yet made. A pot of tea on the desk was still warm. Esther glanced at the digital reader, and she could make out “Approaching Units” on the display before Ma glanced down and discretely moved it out of view. She then directed her gray gaze right at Esther.
“Report darlin'. What did you see?”
“Heavy truck, at least thirty, Ma. Moving slowly, around twenty-five kilometers an hour. Eight kiloliters from our perimeter.” Esther calmly reported through a sweaty brow. “I didn't hear any lifters though. They might just be refugees passing through.” Esther made a tight-lipped smile and breathed to remain clam. Esther smiled, breathed, and tried to remain clam, expecting the now common dressing down for interjecting her opinion.
Instead, Ma sighed and shrugged. “I suppose you're right, but we can't be too cautious these days.” Suddenly Ma tensed her jaw and let out a heavy sigh. “Now concentrate, did you notice anything besides trucks over that damn perfume you're wearing?”
“Blood,” Esther said curiously. “I smelled blood and medicine.”
Ma, shrugging back into her chair in seeming defeat unclenched her jaw and smirked as she looked at the bag propped over Esther shoulder. “My goodness girl. How many tubers did you find today? Thank you sweetheart and give that to the supply team right away.”
Esther breathed a small sigh of relief inside, confident that, for the fist time in a while, she passed the quiz. “Thanks Ma,” she said with a tight lipped smile as she turned for the door.
Quite the wunderkind. She's a good trainee but I wonder what that girl things of me sometimes? Sue thought. Ma Sue's warm feelings for the girl immediately shifted to the report she just finished reading. She made a mental inventory of the weapons in her locker. The trucks might be refugees after all, but why would so many Savages make a beeline directly for a Survivalist Settlement? Even fleeing monkeys know the only way to get a paid escort was to contact by radio, in town. Getting to close to a Settlement or camp is a good way to get killed.
But then again, what reason would anyone have a reason to attack? This valley held nothing for Savages but cold and hot death, which the Savages had plenty of in their own sad world. I've still have Trainees to take care of. Ma thought. Happy to let the Elders figure this one out, Sue. Picking up the virtual screen, she mentally flipped off the situation report and started updating the trainer list and class schedule.
Joshua made his way from the fence line through a dry irrigation ditch awaiting the spring thaw to feed the just planted crops. He leaped out of the ditch, running past a dozen fleece clad Traders in the fields, busily monitoring the automated planting robots and obviously enjoying the unusually mild early spring.
Joshua looked across the other side of the field and saw a speck of Esther in the distance, dashing toward here assigned destination. The farming Traders looked up but didn't bother to speak. Once they realized the fast mover was a mere Trainee they quickly returned to their work. A Trader's two year old husky joined in the sprint, barking and snarling, but after a few hundred meters, the pup realized that he couldn't quite keep up with Joshua and dejectedly went back to his afternoon nap. He passed the greenhouses where he noticed a group of seven-year-old Trainees handling tomatoes and squashes. He could hear the rifle reports and handgun pops in the distance as the Training Guardians opened another late afternoon marksmanship class.
Josh sprinted through the brown gate of the bustling Guardian Quarters. Guardians, of all shapes and sizes were filing out of the huge communal residence. Some were half-immersed in camouflaged, black armored suits. Some were wearing form-fitting hard suits complete with arm-cuffs, pistols and auto cannons. All were heading straight into waiting armored trucks which would take them on patrol along the 25 kilometer patrol area or ferry them to the airstrip where the anti-gravity lifters would suck them in and dump them on their assigned contracts: either escort duty for refugees or escorting Trader convoys kilometers away from the Settlement to trade with the Savages, or other Settlements.
The Intel Officer he had to report to after patrols would ask him details about a particular Guardian's from her eye color to the amount of dirt under her fingernails to her ruck and weapons load, and which would be more efficient for escort or patrol duty. Failure to answer correctly usually resulted in a long night on a hard truck bench with a bunch of jerkhole Guardians watching rocks and mountain goats. I will NOT sit in that damn truck tonight, Joshua said to himself.
Joshua glanced at every Guardian’s face that he passed, picking up every detail he could. He did notice that they were all a bit more tense and guarded than usual. His eyes crossed the gaze of another Guardian, a tall silver-haired man with the lanky muscular build of a mountain lion and narrow brown eyes older than their time. Joshua did not talk to this Guardian before, but that didn't stop the Guardian from twisting his rusty steel face into impish grin and calling out, “3:35.” Another, short dark female Guardian in his squad who he did know as Angel called out, “SECOND PLACE!” The rest of the squad barked in unison, “FIRST LOSER!”
“Dammit,” Josh muttered, and pushed his faltering legs harder, running faster than he ever thought he could. It was now three minutes and twenty five seconds past the initial report from the tower and twenty five seconds from Josh being subjected to another tedious truck ride with those jerkholes. One time, shorty after they were first paired for patrol, Joshua complained bitterly to Esther, who rolled her dark blue eyes and replied. “Guardians don't always get the privilege of harassing Traders, so they relish pouring on Trainees whenever they get a chance.”
“Even you?” He asked half-joking.
“Especially me stupid.” She muttered with a playfully sad and irritated sigh.
“Whatever,” Joshua muttered with a devilish grin as he changed paths and pushed straight through the compound, forcing several Guardians to dodge him as he bounded walls and over their heads. He dashed up a wall, leaped on an armored carrier and took to the roofs, feeling the rush of the wind as he ran along the ledge of the building then dropped back down to the street, forcing a squad of Guardians to dodge as he heaped over their heads. For the briefest of moments, he realized that at around thirty kilometers an hour he could have killed himself and the person he hit, which would have made him laugh at the absolute hilarity of dying that way, assuming he had any breath left. He realized, that was unlikely to happen as Guardians are never going to allow themselves to ever get killed by 70 Kilograms of flying Trainee.
Joshua continued overriding his 'auto set' biological processes, choosing to push more adrenaline to his legs and max out his oxygen flow to his legs and cardiovascular, but his muscles had red-lined. His legs began to shut down under the force of agonizing pain from the excess lactic acid. Worse yet, he started getting dizzy. He cursed his body and pushed harder, completely shutting down all non-essential body functions and channeling all available resources. To stay focused, he worked some eyeball calculations based on the distance between light poles and figured that he was doing at least 35 kilometers an hour as he approached his destination, the Guardian Administrative Intelligence building. Joshua just knew that body would hate him later, but he scared some Guardians and made it on time, so it was totally worth it.
Joshua noticed how hot, cramped and stale and just plain old the GAI building was. It was already buzzing with activity; bustling as if an alert was issued, but there was no change on the alert status of the towering main display. He studied the screen for the few seconds that he had left, noting the position of every mission, some stretching far over the mountain ranges and toward the western cost which was home to the Savage nation the Guardians called The Collective. To the East, there was little to no activity from convoys, but the The room was tight and dark, with rows of chairs and desks and Guardian Intelligence staff working in cramped quarters. Each GI staffer is fed an optical data stream being fed and analyzed by a quantum computer located somewhere deep in the base of the mountains. Josh always imagined that it was located right next to the cold-fusion reactor that powered everything and right above everything else Elders wanted to stay secret.
Joshua recalled the time he asked Pa why the GAI stayed in the old Guardian Administration building when they could have picked any of the new buildings. Pa chuckled, shook his graying, dredlocked head and said, "One of the Elders walked in one day and was bowled over by how cramped that place was. He asked the Lead Guardian every few years if the GA wanted a new building, and the lead Guardian would in turn ask the staff. Everyone, myself included said 'Oh no LG, we're quite happy here! Awesome. Everything five by five.' We were always trying to look tough. Haha!
One day a coolant line snapped and flooded the entire basement and not two days later - regardless of the Trader's best efforts - it began to stink something awful! An Elder stopped by and was so bowled over by the stench he ordered that the GA was moving to a new building weather we Liked. It. Or. Not." the old man said poking the cedar wood table with every syllable.
"So we got that there spanking new building, but the Guardian
Intelligence nerds made some noise about moving the computers and
sensors and all that jazz. Of course, we knew it enough to know
that could be easily done, but the Elders kept the old building
up and the GA got new quarters. I think the Elders left the nerds
there because even with their infinite wisdom couldn't' get them
to budge from their seats. Heck, they can suppress their
senses for twelve straight hours so they didn't care!" Pa shook
his missing brown finger in the ear his finger in the air. Lucky
dogs!" then he chuckled and finished his beer.
Josh remembered being more impressed by Pa's sudden candidness than the drawn-out story.
Joshua limped into the building's command center, which seemed like the entrance to a slightly bigger cave. The moldy smell was still there, but it wasn't nearly as bad as the main room. The lead on-duty - a slightly thickening, muddled-aged women with short back air and penetrating black eyes - smiled and enthusiastically waved him in. Joshua's heart sank. Ms. Samantha was on duty.
“Good Afternoon Ms. Samantha,” Josh muttered, cringing inside.
“So my boy, what did you see?” Sandra asked.
“At least thirty trucks around twelve to fifteen kilometers out at this point, Ma'am. There were no lifters or armored vehicles.
“Were you there? How can you be certain of that, Trainee?” Ms. Samantha said with a raised eyebrow. “Wow!” Ms. Samantha said as she leaned back in the old ergonomic chair while almost effortlessly using her mental skills to feed the data to the computer. “You made it here on time for the last four tries. That's quite the improvement! You're finally coming around Trainee. I like what that girl has done for you!”
Unlike all of the other nerds, Samantha talked. . . a lot. And, she talked about anything and everything, everyone and anyone, anytime the mood struck her, which was every time. Josh wanted to roll his eyes back at the inanity of it all, but from experience, knew that Samantha would notice it, make more irritating jabs and ask more uncomfortable, and unnecessary, questions. Ms. Samantha wasn't exactly famous for her tact, but nonetheless, she could extract information from virtually everyone she talked to.
Ms. Samantha stopped inputting text leaned forward in her chair, cupped both hands under her chin and flashed a feline like smile. “How is it going with your new girlfriend?” She said as her grin turned from warm into mischievous.
“Um, well, Ma'am, I don't have a girlfriend,” Josh sputtered while re-routing the tell-tale flow of blood to his cheeks he felt coming. “I'm not sure what you mean, Ma'am.”
“Oh, you can't hide things like that from me!” she said excitedly as she slapped her knee in certainly and laughed. I'm a Nerd, I earn my meal by knowing these things. Heck, we let that girl rig the hunt selection for that reason! And you're all excited every time you go out with her. I always wondered when you two will mate, son. Or is she keeping her distance? You know what? I could find out for you!”
Ms. Samantha watched the exhausted, brown boy make an nearly imperceptible shutter for the briefest moment, then quickly regain his composure. For a seasoned interrogator like Ms. Samantha, it was rather impressive to witness this display of psychological control in a fifteen-year-old Trainee. Was there really something to the scheme the the Ma and Pa were pulling? she thought. The boy is sharper than he appears and even I can't get a solid read on Esther. It all seems kind of risky. She made no indication of this to the boy whatsoever laughed out loud and continued her debriefing.
Ms. Samantha cupped her hands and sighed "You were always such a slacker in your training until six months ago. I thought for sure you would leave this village right after your right of passage. Then you go out tuber hunting with Esther and you're a whole different person!
You stand tall and perform well on all your drills now. She's really
rubbing off on you!" Ms. Samantha waited a few minutes, but got no noticeable reaction from the Trainee. “Well your debriefing is over, boy. You're free to go to supper tonight."
“Thank you Ma'am,” Josh muttered and with great relief, turning for the door.
"If you need any advice on the ladies, give me a holler!" she
yelled while putting her thumb and pinky finger like a phone and
beaming the warmest smile.
This time, Josh couldn't resist acting out his irritation as he visibly grimaced and plodded out into the late afternoon bustle in the Guardian compound. “Six months,” he muttered to himself. “Only six months until I'm out of this fish pond.” It was only months until the Rite Of Passage that would determine whether a Trainee would be a Guardian or a Trader. “It doesn't make much difference to me,” he said to himself with feigned resolution. The Traders are just as important, if not more important as the Guardians. They feed everyone, make the tools, manufacture the weapons, build the housing engineer the infrastructure. They make all the items the Settlement trades with the Savages. They don't have to follow orders to kill or die and they don't have to spend bitterly cold nights in trucks and lifters looking for bogeymen and shooting at or taking fire from other sapients. Their lives are incredibly spartan and highly. They are only allowed a hand full of personal grooming items, have absolutely no privacy and cannot go into the Trader part of the village except to perform police duty – a job that was not in high demand. The best a Guardian can hope for is either a job defending refugee trains or guarding Traders executing trade deals outside of the wire.
She's going to be one of them, of course, Joshua thought bitterly. Esther was a splendidly talented warrior, “a real natural,' he overheard some Guardians say one night when he was stuck on patrol with them in another barren, smelly quarter-ton assault truck. He had even heard that she was given training with a power armor – nothing any other trainee had been exposed to except in a classroom. The fact that her fame had spread to the Guardian ranks was proof enough that she was an 'in', sure to be assigned to the Guardian ranks. He looked up toward the sky, taking in the setting sun. Me, on the other hand, he said with a contented smirk. They're right. I'm just a slacker. Forget them, I don't care. I don't care about these people.
Then he thought of Esther.
Josh could remember exactly when they went together on their first tuber gathering. At twelve, they were paired up with a random kid from another hooch and told to find buried fungus. The Trainers explained that this, like seemingly everything else they did, was good for building Guardian skills, and good for learning the land if they became Traders. So every afternoon, without fail, a pair of poor souls would have to go out and find enough tubers to make good sized servings for the entire Trainee class. Sure they taste good enough, Josh thought as he nursed spasms in both hips, but you get real sick of them when you have to go through this. Well, unless it's with...
The setting sun was shining right in Esther’s face. The poor little thing was beginning it's agonizing descent behind the mountains in the distance giving away quickly to the cool wind and it's far more mundane sensations. Sitting on the porch railing outside of Josh's hooch, she swung her bare legs over and over again, looking at her heavy hiking boots and the goosebumps emerging from her slender legs. She got lost in the motion of her own feet for a while, hoping that Joshua didn't get dragged out on patrol again. He did manage to make it the last four reports, she thought as she made as she drew in a deep breath, interrupting the shallow ones. The seventy or so times it was her turn, she had never been pulled out on patrol, except for two times, and that was to see what patrol was really like.
The first time, it was a group of young Guardians in a surprisingly cramped truck. They kept very still and quiet. She couldn't make a peep for hours as the group drove around in hours looking for anything that remotely looked like a threat. She though it was all rather sad to see a group so wound up over literally nothing.
The second time, she was given a power suit and settled in with a group of grizzled veterans. The power suit looked bulky and hard to handle, but it was far more comfortable, and better smelling, than the truck. The vets told stories of shootouts with Imperium Cavaliers, vetting out Collective spies and soldiers from civilian convoys. By the time the night was over, they had used those suits to bag a dear, a wolf four rabbits, the third one with a drunk hand and fourteen totally not regulation bottles of beer. No Elder material in that bunch, Esther thought drearily by the next morning.
A couple of Traders, what appeared to be a married couple, rolled by in a large delivery truck and waived lazily out of the windows. They could be my birth providers, for all I know, she thought while attempting a graceful waive and a smile. She could only vaguely remember the day she became a Trainee. She did remember crying a lot, she did remember her mother's smell and touch, but could never remember earlier things and no matter how hard she tried. She couldn't remember her mother's face. The only thing she kept from that day were those fuzzy memories and her given name, Esther.
A song started over the PA speakers on the light polls. Esther recognized it as one of the regular patriotic songs that cleared the Elder's approval. She stood up as ordered put her hand on her heart and sung along as she and the other Trainees were told. It was sung in a haunting tone, which clashed with the rather clunky lyrics.
The Elders will guide
the Guardians will fight;
the Traders will stand;
for our hallowed land.
We will always be free;
we fight and succeed;
so we can be free;
peace and unity!
At the end she furrowed her brow and returned to her seat on the rail. She could sing the bars of every corny patriotic and faith song backward and forward, then die of stultifying boredom.
Every day it was the same: Wake up at 05:00, Run and Drill from 05:30 to 06:30; Breakfast from 07:00 to 07:30; Personal Cleaning from 07:30 to 08:00; Academic lessons taught in individual; virtual learning chambers from 08:00 until 12:00; afternoon meal or kitchen assistant from 12:00 until 12:45; kitchen clean up from 12:45 to 13:00; arts, music, writing, first aid, or other field and practical training from select Traders from 13:00 until 17:00; private time until the evening meal from 18:00 to 18:45 and study time from 19:00 until bed down at 20:00.
Saturdays was – depending on Ma and Pa's moods - either mechanics and engineering, or live fire and maneuver exercises. Sundays was free time except for slackers who were often stuck with extra PT - Physical Training - or Kitchen duty instead of the usual lounging in quarters, playing sports or sneaking into the woods caves and unused quarters to simulate or perform mating. If a Trainee were 'lucky' instead of the weekday afternoon tasks, they would be paired up and go tuber hunting.
At least it beats the routine, she thought a first. She would use whatever free time she had to help whoever asked. Esther never got praise directly, no one did, but she knew she was doing well, for what it was worth.
She remembered the first day she was paired up on a tuber hunt with Josh. By all accounts and observations, he was a total slacker: terrible grades, flippant and dismissive to superiors and was so slow on the tuber runs that he rode with the grunts as if it was his only job.
It was her turn to watch and she went about things in the usual way while maintaining a satisfactory silence. Half an hour into the work, Josh pointed his spade in the air with commanding authority and said in a grunting, wheezy voice, “Well I'll tell you girl!” Josh continued his exclamation, wiggling the spade over his head, “During the last drought we sleep on the bare dirt and just eat rocks, rocks I tell ya' and we would shoot Savages and escort settlers and take down raiding armored cars with nothin' but slingshots and the rocks in our stomachs!” Josh stood up with exaggerated sharpness, put his hands on his hips and leaned forward into the imaginary Trainee. “That's why I produce so much spittle Trainee when I get in your face. You need lots of spit to digest rocks!” He turned to Esther and let out an impish grin and said quietly, “Well Es, I think I would be pretty good Guardian Don't you?”
Esther remembered quietly chuckling. A group of thirteen-year-old male Trainees passed by, giving her a quizzical glance. She only replied with another disarming smile. They waived back with great relief and moved on. Esther squinted into the deep red rays of the setting sun. She closed her eyes, enjoying its last measure of warmth, and for a moment, tuning out everything.
“Es!” a girl's voice asked. She tuned back into her sense. She didn't need to open her eyes to see it was Marie across the road. She could sense another person approaching. Judging by her smell, it was Consuela. Great. She thought with a tinge of guilt. Esther turned and with and half-smiled, “Hey sisters!” with standard-issue friendliness. It was indeed who she thought it was. She felt a strange pang of disappointment.
Marie jumped on the rail with Esther while Consuela leaned on the same rail, crossing here arms and tapping her foot with playful impatience.
Esther thought Consuela - petite, chubby face, ghostly white skin; light brown, almost red, eyes and pale white hair, always clean and and very curly - was the most striking example of genetic manipulation ever devised. None of it offered any survival advantage she could think of, except perhaps getting her bounced out of Guardian duty. She had seen all kinds of hair colors and eye colors among her peers and the Guardians but, when their first met, she would often hang out with Consuela out of sheer amazement. She often wore home-made ribbons in her hair when not in the field, which Esther liked and copied.
Marie right down to her body, was no-nonsense, medium build, light skin, average height, and the typically lean and muscular build of a Survivalist female. Her Breeders definitely played it straight down the middle. She wore her over-washed black hair cropped to her shoulders, hazel eyes often hidden by a data visor, even when it is cold like today, a sweat suit perfectly suited for the approaching chill, a temple placed AI computer, and perpetually gnarled fingernails.
“Are you waiting for Josh?” Consuela said, eyes affixed in giddy curiosity as she popped up to a handstand on the railing. “So are you going to spend this Sunday with him?” she asked without waiting for a follow up.
“I take it that you just got out of evening drill,” Esther said, trying not to betray her feelings one way or another, but Esther knew the jig was already up. Consuela knew, and soon every Trainee in the Settlement would know.
“I can neither confirm nor deny,” Esther said with an comically contrived aloofness.
Marie leaned closer to Esther, pointing at a blushing cheek. “People think you've rigged the selection for the tuber jobs,” she said with bookish authoritativeness.
Consuela vaulted off the railing planting herself right in front of Esther “Of course that's nonsense but you know how the rumors spread.”
Esther shrugged and asked with feigned irritation “I thought rumors spread through you, Consuela.” Esther sighed, “No, I was asked by the Trainee Chiefs to change pairs, that's all. I mean, it makes some sense, but it's just odd they would do this so close to the Rite of Passage.”
“There have been a lot of odd things happening lately,” Marie said with a worried expression. “There's no change in alert level. Now, I can usually crack the lower security level documents, but the security has been tightened so much today that I'm afraid to even try.”
Esther, relieved that she managed to change the topic of conversation, asked “So you don't want to ride the truck again, huh?”
“No!” Marie said with a twisted face. “It's dirty and awful and you have to stay awake all night with those smelly drunks chasing down varmints and noises. It's dirty!”
“Dirty girl!” Consuela muttered between giggles.
“You eat dirt,” Marie muttered back before gnawing on her thumb.
“It's alright Marie,” Esther said in her most soothing voice. “I'll help you tonight. We're here for each other, right?”
Marie, focusing intermittently on the ground, nodded.
Consuela cocked an eyebrow. “So my dear friend” she asked with a smirk, “when are you going to ask him?”
“Ask who, what?” Esther replied with feign innocence.
The setting sun gently warmed the right side of Josh's weary body. He could barely feel this legs, but the had recovered just enough muscle glucose to grant him a slow jog back, and with a smile, he was happy to return home. Esther had agreed to meet him for dinner at his hooch after the dispatch, assuming he would make it back. He wound his way past the Traders in the low hum of their beat-up electric wheeled trucks. The Traders were bundled up in paper thin hot suits and jackets, transporting food to the barracks for the night. Somewhere, in each of those trays, is a small portion of Esther and Josh's haul. For a moment, he felt a small tinge of pride. We're almost there, he thought confidentially.
“Can you believe this!” Esteban whispered to Franklin while peering through the half drawn curtain of the darkened bunk house. He decided to quiet down and send a mentally generated, wireless message to Franklin. “We now have three of the hottest trainees sitting right outside of our door. Cut your terminal and get over here!”
Franklin quietly closed the part of his brain containing the digital terminal, rolled and dropped out of his bunk as quietly as a falling leaf. He sneaked and crouched right behind Esteban on the ceiling, quieting his heart beat, reducing his breathing and taking steps to suppress every vibration and scent he could possibly produce. He knew that he wasn't very good at sneaking up on girls, who generally have better smell and was afraid he would miss out on whatever Esteban was going on about. Like Esteban, he relied mostly on his distance and the composite shelf below the window to mask his heat signature. He tapped in Morse on Esteban’s shoulder.
“Consuela is so beautiful. Over.” He tapped.
Esteban tapped on his knee,”More cute than beautiful, stop. Don't be corny, stop.”
Franklin frowned, but moving his focus from Marie's small breasts and Esther's lean, wiry body, compared to Consuela's short stature and large breasts along with her startling pale blue hair and shining eyes, he couldn't dispute Esteban's analysis. Nevertheless, they were all beautiful to him, and though he had lots of interesting prospects, he still didn't have a dance partner for The Social Event the Trainers were going on about. Maybe it's time to get serious, he though to himself.
Franklin had the best ears of the bunch, likely a product of his birth provider's genetic programing. Moreover, he could read lips, a product of his specialized recon training. Even as Marie and Esther dropped their voices to near inaudible vocalizations, he could still hear Consuela's lips form the words. “Alright, let's skip that part. What do you actually think of him?
Him? Franklin thought. Could they mean Josh?
Esteban's left fingertip rose to meet Frank's blonde forehead. “What did Consuela say? Over.” He tapped with emphasis on Frank's skull. “Did Esther say anything about me? Stop.” “I think she's talking bout the tuber hunt. Over.”
“I think she's talking about the tuber hunt. Over.” Franklin replied, suppressing dumping his rage into the bile emerging from his stomach.
In one smooth motion, Esther stood on the railing, then, in one smooth motion, alternatively lifted her feet, vaulting off the railing and planting both feet solidly on the ground. She knew the knuckleheads in Josh's bunk were up to something. They didn't come out, and they were too quiet. She tried to look over Consuela, ignoring her foot tapping and folded arms.
“Earth to Es,” Marie said wistfully as she raised her hand to Esther. “You know, you don't have to be here if you don't want to be.”
Esther just gave another relaxed smile and look up at the inky darkness of a moonless night. She felt a knot on her stomach and could feel her legs give ever so slightly. Darn, the Trainee is right. She thought as she heard foot steps from down the street. She could tell from the way the foot fell, the squish of the rubber, and the pattern of the gait that it was him.
A bump and crash almost startled Josh as he approached the bunk house. From two blocks away, he could hear Consuela yelp, Franklin rubbing his head and Esteban hitting Franklin on a meaty part of his body. Shit, those idiots, Josh thought angrily. He knew that Marie would thrash the both of them for spying on the girls.
Okay, Esther is there.
Okay, everyone knows now.
Okay, time to take control of the situation.
He pushed his weary legs one last time, leaping on the roof of one of the residence houses, then another, then another until he landed in front of his bunkhouse in a clumsy plant, grazing a wide-eyed Consuela and a snarling Marie. “How is everyone doing tonight?” He said with laughing indifference, hands on aching hips. “It is so great to see people I don't get to see everyday! Is everyone looking forward to dinner? I know I am. How about we find some good seats tonight?”
Josh reached quickly and gently around Marie's shoulder focusing his green eyes longingly and intensely into hers, his thin locks brushing her shoulder. “Or we can always eat outside!” Marie could feel herself blushing, uncontrollably. What does Esther see in this clown? I could smell her all over him. Marie thought, slowly, but surely unclencing her fists.
Esther whistled an irrelevant tune, and turned the other way, feeling slightly irritated, all the same.