The Hunt part 5

Stefi, or more formally, Senior Tech, Enriched Food Imports, I-377-B-940-P-101, was involved in an accident on her way to work …. A stranger came to her assistance and helped to get her cleaned up. Now Stefi has questions about the people who live Outside, and some of them get answered by her Rescuer.

“We didn’t. We were released by my friend’s Crust Mistress. I saw him being led through the Building towards one of the lower floors. Unusually, he was wearing a pack. I chose to follow him, like you, I had heard things that made me curious,”

“What makes you think I am curious?” Stefi demanded. Her rescuer raised an eyebrow. “OK, I get it! Carry on with the story.”

He had followed his friend and the Leash-Holder along corridors towards the outer walls. “The corridor we were on only had doors on one side. The other wall was solid until they came upon a large portal on that side. There, she had him undress, and she cut the sensor from his side. They talked for a few moments. Suddenly, I realised that the crowds had thinned away to nothingness. I was scared she would see me hovering in the corridor.

“The portal slid open, brilliant light flooded in, and some sort of vehicle entered. When my sight recovered, my friend was crouched down by the closing portal. The vehicle was accelerating away from me, and there was no sign of the Crust woman.

“Then I heard her, behind me. ‘Do not turn around, it will be the last thing you do. Go to him, do exactly what he tells you to do. Go with him and keep him safe or die here and now.’ I did exactly what I was told.

“When the portal slid open to allow the next vehicle into the Building, we ran. We were both naked, bleeding from the wound where the sensor had been cut out, and scared.”

“You just followed your friend? For no reason?”

“Not for no reason, Girl. I wanted to live. I knew my friend wanted to live, and his Leash-Holder had told him she didn’t want to know that he was dead. She was going to offer him an alternative.”

“The pack your friend had?”

“Food.”

“That was it?”

“Yes, Girl.”

They sat in silence as the sky darkened. The fire had gone out. The Rescuer placed the cut turf back over the place where the fire had been.

“I don’t want to make it too easy for the Crust Security to piece together the story of this afternoon.”

He picked up some stones and arranged them in a disorderly pile. Then he kicked leaves and threw twigs over the area. As Stefi watched, all signs of where she and her rescuer had conversed were wiped away.

“Now, Girl, go and make yourself comfortable up by the place you took your shower. I have to complete my disappearance.”

“Why can’t I run with you now?” Stefi had felt more and more alive over the past few hours than she had in her entire life. She had asked questions and received answers. She had washed in cold water, and it had been exhilarating. The air, sometimes warm, at other times cool, had brushed her skin, leaving it fresh. This was living, and she knew that she wanted to live. Forever!

“It is not allowed. We know nothing about you; you could be an agent for the Crust Security people. You will have to escape from your Building, with at least one more person.” Stefi was horror-struck at the thought of being trapped back inside. It must have shown on her face. “Remember everything I have told you, and you will know how to get out of the Building. Now that your curiosity has been aroused, you will be able to recognise kindred spirits. Befriend them, and when the time is right, they will run with you.”

“But what do we do for food? And once the portal opens, where do we go?”

“Good, you are planning to join us.” Her Rescuer put his hand on her shoulder. “We keep a watch on the portals. We will be waiting.

“Now I must go and join the others. Crust Security will be here soon after the sun rises. Make up a story about how you survived the crash and came around, filthy and bleeding. You saw a ragged wretch stealing food and tried to stop him, or was it her? They ran, you had tried to catch them, but they crossed the stream and got away. Then you passed out again. Perhaps you came round hungry and stinking. You drank and decided to bathe and noticed that you had been injured.

“Stay close to the truth, it will make the story flow better. If they discover you have had this conversation, the Crust will have you tortured to death to get every last grain of information about us out of you.”

*****

Stefi’s first night in the Outside had been a cold and frightening experience. Noises, lots of noises, she had never heard before. The leaves on the trees rustling in the moving air. There were no trees in the Building, and the air hardly stirred. That was the scariest noise; the sounds of animals moving through the vegetation, eating, drinking, fighting and squabbling were not too dissimilar to the noises her dormitory mates made during the dark periods.

She must have fallen asleep at some stage. When she woke, the sky was streaked with fire, and in the distance, she could hear faint clanking and grinding noises that must be the Security Team coming to rescue the survivors, nearly a day after the three shuttles had destroyed each other and maybe fifty lives.

Stefi struggled back into the rags of her uniform. Her muscles screamed with pain, stretched, torn, and twisted; they had stiffened overnight. The garment she was fighting to fit into, which was normally so comfortable, rubbed and made her skin itch. What was more, it stank, despite having been rinsed in the stream, the smells of shit, piss, blood, and vomit clung to every fibre, causing her to feel nauseous again.

The noise was getting louder as the recovery team got closer. “Maybe it is deliberate, that racket is enough to wake any sleeping survivors,” she announced to the world that stood empty from horizon to horizon.

The first of the massive recovery vehicles emerged from a dip in the middle distance. The second and third followed soon after. They moved slowly towards the mangled wreckage that lay, still dripping some disgusting liquid into a black pool, between Stefi and a ride back to the safety of The Building.

“Safety?” She questioned that word for the first time. “What lay ahead of her? Questioning? Torture? Death? Something worse? The recovery vehicles had arrived.

The Legal Bit

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