The Hunt, part 7
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. Stefi had questions, many questions about the people who live Outside, and some of them got answered. However, people have arrived from the Buildings to clean up the mess. Stefi has been returned to the Building. After two weeks in the Health and Recovery Unit (HRU) she was interrogated about her time Outside before being returned to her dormitory.
They released her back into the dormitory. Every bed space, except hers, was occupied. New faces were filling the gaps left by the reorganisation of teams to cope with the influx of the ‘Rejuvenated’.
“Hey, boys!” Stefi announced her entrance to the dormitory. “I’ve been in the HRU for weeks, and I’ve got an itch that needs a good scratching!”
*****
“You have been Outside, haven’t you, Stefi?” Junior Tech, Enriched Food Imports, I-377-B-923-P-416 had cornered her in the communal sanitary block. Daf, as she had named herself, had been reinstated to Enriched Foods. Probably, because of the skills shortage arising from losing so many workers in one day. “What’s it like?”
“Outside?”
“Yes, Stefi. I can see it in your eyes. I saw the Outside once, briefly. I felt the air move for just an instant, before Security grabbed me and I got reassigned.”
“We heard it was a hygiene breach.” Stefi tried to redirect the conversation before someone could overhear.
“That is what they told me. ‘Your exposure to the Outside means you could have been contaminated.’ I wasn’t allowed back into Production until last week. I heard whispers of the quota being missed, and the next shift, I was out of Waste Food.” She furtively glanced around the block. It was filling up; nearly all of the cubicles were in use. “Does the air really move?” There was a note of desperation in Daf’s demand.
“Yes!” Stefi pushed past her colleague into the common room, where she grabbed one of the men and offered herself as his bed-mate for the night. Firmly ending any form of conversation with Daf.
*****
“Does the air really move?” Daf’s words floated around in Stefi’s mind as she dozed off. She tried to recall if she had ever had any curiosity about the Outside before she found herself there. It was just a given; there were the Buildings where people lived and the Outside where they didn’t. Yes, she had a thousand and one questions about the Outside now, but last month?
“Now that your curiosity has been aroused, you will be able to recognise kindred spirits …” The words of her Rescuer came back. Daf had asked a question. No, she had asked several questions and had pressed hard for answers. Was Daf a kindred spirit? If she was, what was the way forward? How could Stefi uncover more about Daf without putting herself at risk?
*****
It was Daf who made the move. She brought a naked male over to where Stefi was eating one evening. “Marc here reckons that he could take all I have to offer and still give another woman a good time. I told him he couldn’t cope with you and me, and he laughed. Are you up for helping me wipe the smile off his face?”
I looked at the imploring expression on her face. Then I made a show of studying the weapon that Daf said the male had claimed could destroy us both.
“With that?” I reached out and took his tool in my hand. “What are we going to do afterwards?”
“I don’t know Stefi, but I am sure we could amuse ourselves until he can get it up again.”
As long as Daf had picked the right man, he looked strong, and so far he had remained silent. There was always sexual activity, and it wasn’t always focused on baby-making. One man and two women, which could result in conception. Two women finishing what a man had started, no problem. Then neither was a group of men pleasuring each other. As long as the quota for ‘healthy’ babies was met, the Directors were happy.
*****
Marc was good, even if his claim was rather overstated, but good sex is better than none. Stefi was in a good place when they started to talk about the Outside. It wasn’t talking in the normal sense. It was a language of gestures, signs and mouth movements that had developed over the decades of dormitory living. Stefi encouraged her bed companions to talk. She wasn’t going to let on about her encounter with the Outsiders until she was certain of both Daf and Marc’s intentions.
With a little bit of careful probing, Stefi had Daf putting more detail on her experience in the Outside. It was a case of being somewhere she wasn’t supposed to be. A regular occurrence on the worker’s day of rest, without structure, some people would start out to the shuttle station, find their boarding blocked and fill the time roaming around the Building. She found herself at an open door, a maintenance team was repainting the exterior wall,
Daf had stood in the opening for several minutes, watching the clouds moving across the sky and the plants, probably trees, Stefi decided, swaying rhythmically. Daf gave into the urge to step out of the portal to see, feel and hear more. As she stepped forward, alarms went off, and within seconds, Security arrived to hustle her off to face a disciplinary board.
“But in those few seconds, Stefi, I felt the air move against my skin and tug at my hair.” Her hand went unconsciously to the short-cropped hair above her right ear, fingers running through it, pulling slightly.
Stefi noticed that both she and Marc were mirroring the gesture.
“I was part of an emergency clean-up crew.” Marc launched into his story unprompted. “I had been on the Outside plenty of times before, so I guess the Directors thought I would be fine. I’m in Security, that is how I first encountered Daf, dragging her back to the Inside. When you are on the Outside in a security role, you are wearing armour. You can feel nothing, and the suits’ computers process everything you see or hear. It is like an extension of the Building. The work suits we were wearing while we were clearing the spill were not made to measure.
“The stench leaked in through the seals very quickly. It made me want to vomit; I had to pull off my helmet before I choked myself. After I had finished being sick, I stood without putting my helmet back on, I heard, I felt, and I even got to smell the Outside for the first time.
“I put my helmet back on, fastened the clips, and pretended it never happened. Except I couldn’t get it out of my mind. A few days later, they moved everyone around to accommodate a number of the Rejuvenated. I was to be repositioned. That is when I found myself in this Dormitory with Daf. I recognised her as the worker my colleague and I had rescued from the Outside a few weeks before and felt the need to compare notes with her.”
“Yes, when Marc and I were having a post coital chat, it came out he was suffering the same sort of desperate feelings as I had experienced.” Daf went silent for a few breaths. “Then I recognised the same signs in your behaviour.”
Stefi didn’t feel safe to jump straight into an account of her much more prolonged, and profound, period of exposure to the Outside and her encounter with the Outsiders. She had just shared a member of the Security Team with a younger woman she had not known well a few days earlier. Ask questions that will win you time and may reveal something important.
“Security, it is unusual to find one of your Directorate outside of a squad, isn’t it?”
“It never happens,” Marc responded. “I have been reassigned to Maintenance as a Labourer. I think I was spotted without my helmet, and they ran some psychological tests on me. I was lucky; instead of terminating me, they reassigned me.”
“That will be because of the casualties.” Stefi let slip something she had avoided mentioning during her ‘debriefing.’
“Casualties?” Daf interjected.
Marc looked confused. Stefi resigned herself to giving up part of her story.
“Three, maybe four cycles back, soon after your Hygiene Breach, there was a big incident involving a couple of shuttles. Several hundred people were ended in the crash.”
“That would be the one I was involved in!” Marc put in excitedly.
“Several hundred people? All killed?” Daf was confused. “I heard nothing about it!”
“And you still haven’t!” Stefi looked, staring hard, into the eyes of what were now her co-conspirators in turn. “And you didn’t hear the rumour from me. Understand!”
Both nodded their understanding.
“Why do you think you were rehabilitated so quickly, Daf? Why weren’t you terminated immediately, Marc? Why have people been reassigned around the dormitories?”
“To create room for the Rejuvenated?” Daf parroted the official line.
“Rejuvenated? … Pah!” Stefi decided that it was time to stop before she overloaded her colleagues. “I tell you what, see if you can spot a Rejuvenated person, you know someone over forty years old. We will do this again next cycle; this time, I’m going first! Goodnight.”
Stefi slipped off the mattress, collected her underwear from the floor and went back to her own bunk.
“Is he as good as they say he is?” A voice from a nearby bunk.
“No, of course not. He is a man. Then, I am going to give him a second chance in a few days’ time. Perhaps you can coach him for me!” Stefi chuckled as she tucked herself into bed.
The Legal Bit
Published by Edward Yeoman
11160 Caunes Minervois, France
www.tvhost.co.uk
Copyright © 2026 Ted Bun
All rights reserved. No portion of this story may be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except as permitted by British copyright law. For permissions contact: ted.bun@sunnybuns.me.uk
n up the mess. Stefi has been returned to the Building. After two weeks in the Health and Recovery Unit (HRU) she was interrogated about her time Outside before being returned to her dormitory.
They released her back into the dormitory. Every bed space, except hers, was occupied. New faces were filling the gaps left by the reorganisation of teams to cope with the influx of the ‘Rejuvenated’.
“Hey, boys!” Stefi announced her entrance to the dormitory. “I’ve been in the HRU for weeks, and I’ve got an itch that needs a good scratching!”
*****
“You have been Outside, haven’t you, Stefi?” Junior Tech, Enriched Food Imports, I-377-B-923-P-416 had cornered her in the communal sanitary block. Daf, as she had named herself, had been reinstated to Enriched Foods. Probably, because of the skills shortage arising from losing so many workers in one day. “What’s it like?”
“Outside?”
“Yes, Stefi. I can see it in your eyes. I saw the Outside once, briefly. I felt the air move for just an instant, before Security grabbed me and I got reassigned.”
“We heard it was a hygiene breach.” Stefi tried to redirect the conversation before someone could overhear.
“That is what they told me. ‘Your exposure to the Outside means you could have been contaminated.’ I wasn’t allowed back into Production until last week. I heard whispers of the quota being missed, and the next shift, I was out of Waste Food.” She furtively glanced around the block. It was filling up; nearly all of the cubicles were in use. “Does the air really move?” There was a note of desperation in Daf’s demand.
“Yes!” Stefi pushed past her colleague into the common room, where she grabbed one of the men and offered herself as his bed-mate for the night. Firmly ending any form of conversation with Daf.
*****
“Does the air really move?” Daf’s words floated around in Stefi’s mind as she dozed off. She tried to recall if she had ever had any curiosity about the Outside before she found herself there. It was just a given; there were the Buildings where people lived and the Outside where they didn’t. Yes, she had a thousand and one questions about the Outside now, but last month?
“Now that your curiosity has been aroused, you will be able to recognise kindred spirits …” The words of her Rescuer came back. Daf had asked a question. No, she had asked several questions and had pressed hard for answers. Was Daf a kindred spirit? If she was, what was the way forward? How could Stefi uncover more about Daf without putting herself at risk?
*****
It was Daf who made the move. She brought a naked male over to where Stefi was eating one evening. “Marc here reckons that he could take all I have to offer and still give another woman a good time. I told him he couldn’t cope with you and me, and he laughed. Are you up for helping me wipe the smile off his face?”
I looked at the imploring expression on her face. Then I made a show of studying the weapon that Daf said the male had claimed could destroy us both.
“With that?” I reached out and took his tool in my hand. “What are we going to do afterwards?”
“I don’t know Stefi, but I am sure we could amuse ourselves until he can get it up again.”
As long as Daf had picked the right man, he looked strong, and so far he had remained silent. There was always sexual activity, and it wasn’t always focused on baby-making. One man and two women, which could result in conception. Two women finishing what a man had started, no problem. Then neither was a group of men pleasuring each other. As long as the quota for ‘healthy’ babies was met, the Directors were happy.
*****
Marc was good, even if his claim was rather overstated, but good sex is better than none. Stefi was in a good place when they started to talk about the Outside. It wasn’t talking in the normal sense. It was a language of gestures, signs and mouth movements that had developed over the decades of dormitory living. Stefi encouraged her bed companions to talk. She wasn’t going to let on about her encounter with the Outsiders until she was certain of both Daf and Marc’s intentions.
With a little bit of careful probing, Stefi had Daf putting more detail on her experience in the Outside. It was a case of being somewhere she wasn’t supposed to be. A regular occurrence on the worker’s day of rest, without structure, some people would start out to the shuttle station, find their boarding blocked and fill the time roaming around the Building. She found herself at an open door, a maintenance team was repainting the exterior wall,
Daf had stood in the opening for several minutes, watching the clouds moving across the sky and the plants, probably trees, Stefi decided, swaying rhythmically. Daf gave into the urge to step out of the portal to see, feel and hear more. As she stepped forward, alarms went off, and within seconds, Security arrived to hustle her off to face a disciplinary board.
“But in those few seconds, Stefi, I felt the air move against my skin and tug at my hair.” Her hand went unconsciously to the short-cropped hair above her right ear, fingers running through it, pulling slightly.
Stefi noticed that both she and Marc were mirroring the gesture.
“I was part of an emergency clean-up crew.” Marc launched into his story unprompted. “I had been on the Outside plenty of times before, so I guess the Directors thought I would be fine. I’m in Security, that is how I first encountered Daf, dragging her back to the Inside. When you are on the Outside in a security role, you are wearing armour. You can feel nothing, and the suits’ computers process everything you see or hear. It is like an extension of the Building. The work suits we were wearing while we were clearing the spill were not made to measure.
“The stench leaked in through the seals very quickly. It made me want to vomit; I had to pull off my helmet before I choked myself. After I had finished being sick, I stood without putting my helmet back on, I heard, I felt, and I even got to smell the Outside for the first time.
“I put my helmet back on, fastened the clips, and pretended it never happened. Except I couldn’t get it out of my mind. A few days later, they moved everyone around to accommodate a number of the Rejuvenated. I was to be repositioned. That is when I found myself in this Dormitory with Daf. I recognised her as the worker my colleague and I had rescued from the Outside a few weeks before and felt the need to compare notes with her.”
“Yes, when Marc and I were having a post coital chat, it came out he was suffering the same sort of desperate feelings as I had experienced.” Daf went silent for a few breaths. “Then I recognised the same signs in your behaviour.”
Stefi didn’t feel safe to jump straight into an account of her much more prolonged, and profound, period of exposure to the Outside and her encounter with the Outsiders. She had just shared a member of the Security Team with a younger woman she had not known well a few days earlier. Ask questions that will win you time and may reveal something important.
“Security, it is unusual to find one of your Directorate outside of a squad, isn’t it?”
“It never happens,” Marc responded. “I have been reassigned to Maintenance as a Labourer. I think I was spotted without my helmet, and they ran some psychological tests on me. I was lucky; instead of terminating me, they reassigned me.”
“That will be because of the casualties.” Stefi let slip something she had avoided mentioning during her ‘debriefing.’
“Casualties?” Daf interjected.
Marc looked confused. Stefi resigned herself to giving up part of her story.
“Three, maybe four cycles back, soon after your Hygiene Breach, there was a big incident involving a couple of shuttles. Several hundred people were ended in the crash.”
“That would be the one I was involved in!” Marc put in excitedly.
“Several hundred people? All killed?” Daf was confused. “I heard nothing about it!”
“And you still haven’t!” Stefi looked, staring hard, into the eyes of what were now her co-conspirators in turn. “And you didn’t hear the rumour from me. Understand!”
Both nodded their understanding.
“Why do you think you were rehabilitated so quickly, Daf? Why weren’t you terminated immediately, Marc? Why have people been reassigned around the dormitories?”
“To create room for the Rejuvenated?” Daf parroted the official line.
“Rejuvenated? … Pah!” Stefi decided that it was time to stop before she overloaded her colleagues. “I tell you what, see if you can spot a Rejuvenated person, you know someone over forty years old. We will do this again next cycle; this time, I’m going first! Goodnight.”
Stefi slipped off the mattress, collected her underwear from the floor and went back to her own bunk.
“Is he as good as they say he is?” A voice from a nearby bunk.
“No, of course not. He is a man. Then, I am going to give him a second chance in a few days’ time. Perhaps you can coach him for me!” Stefi chuckled as she tucked herself into bed.
The Legal Bit
Published by Edward Yeoman
11160 Caunes Minervois, France
www.tvhost.co.uk
Copyright © 2026 Ted Bun
All rights reserved. No portion of this story may be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except as permitted by British copyright law. For permissions contact: ted.bun@sunnybuns.me.uk