Thrown Away (6 page)
Authors: Glynn James
He heard a voice, low, one of the Hunters. "No one else here? Are you sure?"
The boy shook his head again.
And then it was too late. The Hunters ushered Ryan out of the room and into the hall, and were gone.
Seconds too late, Jack jumped from his hiding place behind the ruined sofa and ran through the rooms of their hideout, rushing down the hall as he drew his machetes, hurrying out into the street only to see the windowless vehicle heading away at an incredible speed, then turning a corner a block away.
Then it was gone. And so was Ryan.
Time to go
And the boy did exactly as you told him, didn't he? He didn't give you up, he kept quiet. When all along you thought that your instructions might keep him alive if ever you were caught, that he would stay silent and hide, you never expected it to be the other way round, did you?
You didn't act that night because you were a coward, Jack told himself. You didn't act and the boy was taken - Ryan was gone - leaving you to stew over it again and again, every night for two years, to wake up sweating, crying like a fool.
What were you expecting after he was gone? That you could get over it?
In the darkness of the room, in the spot where the magazines had been, Jack finally realised what it was he must do. He'd waited too long - much too long - even though he'd always known what his only real option was. Two years ago the boy had been taken by the Hunters, and for two years Jack had tried to reason with himself, screwed his head up with thoughts of what he could have done - should have done - on that night, but he had never, until that moment, accepted that there was a choice he could make that might give him a chance to get back what was lost.
Jack Avery stood up and walked towards the door.
Pickup
Corporal Markell stood watch at the rear of the Armoured Personnel Vehicle as the last of the new workforce recruits were pushed inside. The corporal then nodded at the last squad as they passed by with no new prisoners in tow. They wouldn't be berated for not bringing someone back this time. This whole trip out had been low-yield, as her superior officer, Lieutenant Cray had suggested it would be.
It was pointless going back to the same area after such a short amount of time, and Cray had said as much when the target location had been announced an hour before. But they all knew that disputing the target was pointless, and even if they did it would be them that would catch the blame for the lack of worker harvest.
Markell closed the back door and turned to head for the side of the vehicle, glad that the day's fiasco was over and that they could all go back to their dorms and watch TV, and maybe get drunk.
But there was a figure standing just feet away, in the middle of the street - a man that shouldn't have been there. Markell frowned, and slowly raised the Assault Rifle.
The man lifted two machetes from his belt, held his hands out, and just as Markell was about to fire, the man - who looked tired and weak - dropped the machetes to the ground.
The man was giving himself up. It was a ridiculous notion, Markell thought. No one ever gave themselves up.
"We have another prisoner," stammered Markell into the radio, still not quite accepting the man's actions. Was he mad? He must be - had to be - to make such a stupid choice. It just wasn't done. Seconds later, the last squad rushed around the truck and encircled the man as Markell opened the back of the vehicle and watched, stunned, as the man voluntarily walked forward, heading for the open maw of the truck.
Markell frowned again as the man stopped at the back of the truck and turned. The man said something, but Markell couldn't hear him clearly. The words were muffled by the helmet's padding.
No one ever gave themselves up willingly, Markell thought again. Why would they? Even life out here in the ruins was better than the short life of a work slave, Markell knew that. Yet, here was this man doing just that, the first to do so in seven years of Markell's military career.
Markell felt a sudden urge to speak to the man, and it was uncontrollable.
I must know why.
Into Darkness
Jack stood at the back of the prison vehicle, about to step up into the open door, but then he turned to the nearest Hunter, the one who had been at the back of the truck as he had approached. He looked at the Hunter directly where his eyes should be - or Jack's nearest guess - and asked. "Who are you people?"
Then, to his shock, the Hunter reached up and tapped the side of his helmet, which immediately gave a hiss of compressed air before the entire front visor opened upwards.
Staring back at him, from within the armour of a Hunter, was the face of a young woman. He couldn't guess her age exactly, but thought she could be no older than twenty-five, thirty at most.
Then the Hunter spoke, and she sounded as he had expected, just like a young woman. This wasn't a robot, or something worse. Hunters were just people.
"Why give yourself up?" asked Corporal Lisa Markell, ignoring the furious chatter on the radio, and the orders to raise her protective mask,
immediately
.
Jack hesitated, and then looked at the woman. "I have to find a boy that you took from me," he said, just before he was pushed into the vehicle by one of the other Hunters.
The back doors of the prison vehicle closed and he was plunged into darkness.
I was right, thought Jack. You can't see out of these things. Shame I can't tell anyone that.
Why
The vehicle sped through the streets, rapidly heading towards the Dropship, and in the middle compartment - the section of each vehicle that contained the recruitment squad and their equipment - Lisa pulled off her helmet and threw it to the floor.
"Are you mad?" asked Johnson, another corporal in her section. "You
never
take your helmet off. 101, man!"
"I had to know why," answered Lisa.
Johnson looked confused. "You'll be lucky if they don't demote you for it," he said.
"I had to know why he gave himself up," Lisa continued. "It just didn't make any sense. No one does that.
Ever
."
"Of course not," said Johnson. "Even the irradiated scum out here isn't
that
stupid."
Johnson paused for a moment. "Why did he do it, anyway?" he asked.
Lisa looked over at Johnson, and smiled. "He wants to find a boy that was captured."
"Oh. Well, tough luck on that one," said Johnson, shuffling in his seat and then roughly snapping the safety belt into place. "They all die within a month or two, anyway."
* * *
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* * *
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Sophie of Clayton Editing.
Any typos or errors in this book after these fantastic editors went through it - are entirely my fault.