Original Fiction: The Anarchist's Almanac, Episode 4

Joshua paused for a moment. He looked deep in thought.

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“Well, we have to know what’s going on, right?” he said. “It doesn’t affect just us, and we know if we wait until tomorrow, they’ll probably be watching. I think we have to go tonight.”

Eugene spoke next. “I think Joshua is right, but I’m also with Adam. This doesn’t feel right. I think we should take two teams and have someone on lookout from outside the town. I can bring the small drone and put eyes up above from that hill to the west.”

“How are you going to get there? That truck is just too noisy to operate at night without being heard, and the electric carts don’t have that kind of range,” John said.

Eugene smiled, “I’ve been working on that. The Reaper batteries we got from Jackson’s tribe will get us there, and I’ve harnessed three of them together so, top speed is somewhere around 120 klicks.”

Darian whistled, “That sounds like fun to drive in the dark!”

“Alright, Darian, you and Eugene take the drone and head out. We’ll contact you when we’re in radio range. John, why don’t you come with me to check out the printer and assess the damage? Adam, no one faults you if you think you should stay, you know that.”

Adam smiled, “I’m with you, Joshua.”

No one doubted that for a second. Although he was a staunch believer in non-aggression, he had proven himself a worthy adversary when provoked on more than one occasion.

They gathered the gear they needed and Joshua spoke with Jenre and Dax, sharing their plans so that someone would know. Jenre would be in command of the watch tonight, while Dax would stand by on the Anarchist’s Almanac to let them know of any warnings.

Long distance communications were tricky, but John had managed to salvage some antique cellular technology that allowed them to communicate, provided they weren’t too far off the beaten path. They were reverse-engineering some Consensus com pods that would be ready soon, giving them full communication from anywhere.

They had adapted a method for nighttime travel that involved using night-vision goggles for most of the trip.

Since lights could be seen from a long distance, and no one should be out and about in the Outlands, headlights nearly always attracted unwanted attention. Darian set off with Eugene to establish a lookout. The second team settled in to wait thirty minutes before they followed.

They had learned the hard way not to keep more than one vehicle in close proximity when traveling. Twice they had been forced to abandon vehicles to Reapers.

After thirty minutes had passed, Joshua donned his goggles and put the solar truck in gear.

Having grown up with fossil fuel vehicles, the silence of the electric cars was unsettling for Joshua at first. His dad had bought one when he was driving age. This truck was a huge improvement over the heavy, awkward versions that had first taken over from the internal combustion engines.

Holdenville was forty miles away and in the old days, with properly maintained roads, they could have easily driven that distance in less than a half hour. The current reality made it a three-hour ordeal, with frequent stops to watch for drones and listen for signs of trouble. It was nearly eleven pm when they reached the hill overlooking the small town.

The night-vision goggles were equipped with binocular magnification and Joshua and Adam both scanned the area thoroughly for several minutes without talking.

“Seems safe,” Joshua said.

Adam agreed, “I don’t see anything moving or suspicious, but I still have that feeling.”

John patted Adam on the shoulder, “We’ve got your back. We’re all going home safe tonight.”

The truck rolled up through the end of what had been the downtown. Two-story brick facades stood at either side. Many of these old towns had actually gotten a rebirth during the abdication, as people fled the city and opted for local networks to avoid the monstrous centralized government.

In the end, they had been starved out, with supply lines cut and not enough time to develop local resources. Ironically, Joshua had always thought; it was as if they had devolved back to the original colonies hundreds of years before, hoping to be able to survive the winter and establish enough crops and flocks to maintain their independence.

The early twenty-first century bureaucracies had decimated traditional farming.

They were very few true heirloom plant species still available, even as seeds. The skills and tools needed were rare and the learning curve was steep. It was especially challenging once the Internet shut down, and the technology savvy were tossed on the shores of a foreign land of knowledge, contained in the few remaining printed books.

Many had even lost the skills needed to learn from reading. They could read, but their education had come in the form of video, with verbal explanations. Without it, they seemed lost. Now this.

Ghost towns like Holdenville dotted North America and from what Joshua knew, were becoming more common in other places too.

The dwellers didn’t know what had become of their fellow citizens. Had they simply died out? But if, so, where were the bodies? Had they moved on? If so, to where? The consensus cities he had seen certainly didn’t explain it. They weren’t large enough to contain them all.

They feared the worst, government had finally conducted the culling that late twentieth-century Conspiracists had predicted and what was left was the human race in manageable numbers. Images from ancient Holocaust footage often haunted Joshua’s dreams as his imagination filled in the gaps in the most gruesome way possible.

He stopped the truck, and they got out.

From experience, they knew that if they engaged a Reaper, or squad of Seeker troops, they would fare better on foot. If they were here, the roads would be shut down, preventing escape by vehicle. Joshua racked a shell into the chamber of his 12 gauge, and John checked his own nine mm handgun.

Adam had objected to carrying a firearm, and the dwellers' egalitarian mindset meant that every member could decide for themselves on issues such as this. He carried an aluminum bat he’d requisitioned from a small sporting goods store in Camden, another of their Settlings.

The night was warm. The street had once been blacktop, but sand and debris had buried it. The rubble crunched under foot as they moved through the downtown blocks, headed toward the grain elevator at the far end. Joshua hadn’t gotten used to how spooky dark windows can look, and most of these still had their glass.

Holdenville had only been force evacuated about eighteen months before. They moved slowly, Joshua near what had been the right curb, John on the far left, and Adam bringing up the rear and keeping an eye out behind.

“We’re here. Everything seems quiet so far," Joshua said into the radio headset.

Eugene replied, “Everything looks good from our end, in fact; we can’t even see any real damage at the grain elevator, is it possible they didn’t find it?”

“I don’t know how they could have missed it,” John said.

“We’ll know soon enough, let’s keep the chatter to the necessary here, okay?” Joshua reminded his team of their protocol. One moment of distraction, and this night could end very poorly for all of them and their tribe.

About a block from the elevator, the dweller controlled drone swept by overhead. “Taking one last pass around the perimeter before you approach," Eugene said. The three men on the street held their positions for what seemed like five minutes. “Okay no motion, no heat signatures and no signal readings. As far as I can tell it’s empty. Be careful.”

In the early days, recon missions like this were accompanied by armed drones that could provide weaponized air support. After a close call that nearly killed a team member, the tribe had decided it wasn’t worth the risk, so, Joshua knew, all Eugene could provide was a warning if things changed once they entered the elevator.

Stay tuned for the next episode! What lies in wait inside the elevator? Will Adam's "hunch" play out? Follow my blog to have new episodes delivered straight to your feed!