Original Scifi: The Anarchist's Almanac, Episode 1

Joshua flinched, the attic was too hot, he knew they couldn’t stay much longer.

His left eye focused down through a narrow crack into the room below. The Reaper was taking too long, he knew somehow that they were here.

Dust filtered into the room below as someone a few feet from Joshua shifted in their hiding place that he knew felt like an insulated coffin. All he could do was pray Dara was able to keep the baby quiet.

It was over a hundred degrees outside and it must be at least 130 in this attic, but through experience, they knew that any hiding place with an obvious entrance would be discovered without fail. Too many dwellers had been taken that way. They had built in hiding places in each of their Settlings and they moved camp every three weeks.

This had kept them ahead of the Reaper’s monthly sweeps for over two years, until the last couple of months, now this.

It was bad enough when the Reapers popped up on a foraging team, but here, in The Settling and a week ahead of their regular rotation. They were seeing something new, or perhaps he and the dwellers were getting careless, leaving too many clues for the drones that constantly crisscrossed overhead.

The heavy machine, with its man like features was just inches below him. He could almost touch the “kill switch” dead in the center of the top of the Reaper’s head.

It would only take a second to get upright enough to plunge the huge crowbar he had clasped in his hand through the rotting plaster into this thing’s plasma brain and shut it down for good.

But one false move and the twenty odd dwellers who shared this attic, hiding in insulated metal ductwork, safe from the Reaper’s heat sensors, could all be stunned and taken, or worse, end up dead in the ensuing melee.

Besides, the last Reaper carcass they had scavenged had led more right to their doorstep and they were no doubt tracking all of them in the same way, now that things had died down and they had time for that.

No, they would just have to wait and hope that the attic heat didn’t kill anyone.

This Reaper was one of the newest breed. They were larger and their AI seemed to be greatly improved. They were more thorough in the way they searched. And, it seemed, more persistent, making it more and more difficult to stay quiet and hidden until the things left. Joshua turned his head.

Through the visor of his heat blocking foil suit, he could see dimly in the dusty attic, there was no motion. Everyone was holding position so far, so good.

He took a mental inventory. There was Ralph, with two younger men in the duct next to him, Jenre, with his wife and daughter in the one next to that, then four more ducts each holding three to six, which left him, John and his son Dax, in heat blocking suits that allowed them to blend in, as long as no motion was detected.

This group of dwellers was the only family Joshua Claiborne knew, and he knew they were counting on him.

Below him, the metal beast paused and tilted its head up slightly. Then, without warning, the giant piston that drove its left arm extended upward. The long, thin pike the Reapers used to probe for hiding spots came slicing up through the ceiling and Joshua heard the distinctive “punk” as it punctured the sheet metal in the bottom of one of the nearby ducts.

He held his breath. There was no accompanying scream, and the machine withdrew the probe with only dust, no signs of blood.

The Magistrate, as the Reapers were properly called, moved around the room below one last time, then leapt from the window at the end of the house to the ground below. Joshua slipped from his hiding spot in the duct, and moved stealthily to the attic gable vent to get a view of the giant humanoid robot.

It scanned the barn, next to them, then took off in a lope to the top of the nearest hill where it would be picked up by one of the large delivery drones.

Joshua clanked the crowbar against the frame of a metal attic vent fan, the signal that it was safe to at least sit up and breathe. The dwellers knew not to make a sound until they heard the verbal all clear from their point man, which was Joshua at the moment.

It was only a minute or two until the hum of the drone got closer and the metal giant was carried away, looking as if he had become the prey of a large mechanical raptor.

“All clear,” Joshua said quietly, removing the hood of his heat suit. The attic behind him stirred and it looked like a grave yard coming back to life as the dwellers helped each other up out of their hiding places.

John coughed, “That was the longest we’ve had to hide yet. They’re getting closer, Josh.” John handed him a glowing digital stop watch, it read nineten minutes and forty-five seconds.

A few more minutes and the three small children and two elderly members of their community would have been at serious risk of heat stroke.

“Wish there was a better way than these coffins in the attic.”

“Yeah, but you know the reapers. Anything that looks like living space they’ll tear apart. It won’t be long until their programmers figure out where we’re hiding and then the fact that there are no stairs to our hiding place won’t even slow them down."

"They’ll start by coming through the roof.” Joshua said, peering through the attic vent, a plume of dust was coming over the hill.

Must be the supply run.

John opened the fold up attic stairs and the dwellers exited, one by one, elderly first, then children, then women and last but not least the four men, including Joshua and John. This group of dwellers had been together as long as any Joshua knew of and they had a good track record of staying safe, hidden and fed, which was more than could be said for most.

“Jenre, was that your duct he hit?” Joshua asked a young man, helping his wife and six year old daughter to the stairs.

The girl answered with a laugh, “Yeah, it was like, right there!” she said, holding a hand a few inches from her head, “It was awesome!” The child scampered down the ladder, none the worse for wear. It would be safe here for a few days, now that the Reaper had passed.

They searched the Outland towns that had been force evacuated on a grid, which usually meant the dwellers could track them through the Anarchist’s Almanac, an improvised internet where groups of dwellers could share important details for survival. But lately, they had been popping up unannounced.

“Sasha is fine this time, Joshua, but that was too close. Maria and I are thinking it might be best to just relocate to a Caucus city,” Jenre looked grim.

“I understand, I really do, but if you think things are better there…” Joshua said.

“You don’t know! None of us do. But, what if that probe had been six inches to the left? No amount of freedom can give me a child back. You of all people should realize that,” Jenre turned toward the stairs, then turned back, “I’m sorry, it’s not you. It’s just…” he left his unfinished sentence hanging between them and exited the attic.

Joshua understood completely. He’d been in Jenre’s position.

What Jenre didn’t know, what Joshua would never tell him, was that it was hopeless. There was nothing for them in the Caucus cities, except slavery. If there was any other way, on days like this, Joshua would take it. The Outland was becoming too dangerous.

Between the tox-scares that forced them to wear improvised hazmat suits on foraging and supply runs, and the increased Reaper presence on odd schedules, a move to a Consensus held Caucus City was starting to almost make sense. He wondered how long he would be able to keep his little family safe under these conditions.

“Dad, Darian will be back soon and you promised to finish my training, I am not going to miss that foraging run,” Dax said.

Dax was Joshua Claiborne’s only surviving family. He would be thirteen in a few months and he was determined to start pitching in on supply runs and foraging expeditions.

“A supply run, Dax, no foraging yet, not your first time out. I’m not sure training today is a good idea, we’ll see.”

*Watch for the next episode! Will the monstrous Reaper return? What is the consensus? Want to find out more? Check out this post, featuring the 12 laws, the founding document of the Convenant of Consensus. *

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