RULE #6

Don’t postpone maintenance and never do a half-assed job! Clean and replace your filters!

~ The Scavenger’s Handbook

Grey woke to the sound of someone calling his name. Still groggy, he crawled out of the small hole he had dug for himself as an improvised shelter. Well, calling it that was being generous. He simply found a bench, underneath years’ worth of foliage, and cleared the dirt and soil under it, just enough to squeeze underneath. Although the day was quite warm, it did not feel right to sleep without any form of protection.

“Keep your voice down,” Grey yawned behind his gas mask as he called out. “Over here.”

“Mr Grey, there you are,” Heather came jogging with a worried expression. “Something’s happened. We cannot find the Master Sergeant and Miss Cake anywhere.”

Well, that was a great start to his day. Wasn’t it enough that his wrist was killing him? No, the Park did not give a damn about such trivial things. He pulled the sleeve of his jacket and undid the piece of cloth he had used instead of bandages. Getting the entire roll of the real thing soaked in Cake’s blood, was not his brightest moment. Nothing to be done about that now, so Grey made a mental note to have the bandages boiled in alcohol at the first opportunity. He was not too happy about what he was seeing. The skin was showing signs of inflammation and the bleeding hadn’t stopped entirely. Having another nasty scar was a small price to pay, considering he could have lost the wrist. Getting killed by infection was far less appealing. Letting out a long sigh, Grey reached for the first aid container and retrieved a small plastic tube of antiseptic gel.

“Did you hear what I said?” Heather asked, with a little more steel to her voice than he had expected of the girl.

“I did,” Grey applied a small bead of the medicine and rubbed it on the wound. He wanted to avoid using it, however, he was not taking any chances. The last thing he needed was the degraded use of his dominant hand.

“Why are you just standing there then? We need to find them!” The girl snapped at him, anger finally replacing the worry on her face. She took a step closer as if trying to intimidate him.

What was wrong with these kids? They were far too impulsive, lacked any common sense and could not see further than their nose. He wondered why he took their offer, despite all the warning signs. The answer was simple – he was worried by the offered pardon. It meant that Axion had taken an actual interest in his actions and they would start hunting him if he refused. Grey was ill-prepared to disappear in the ruins. Even less prepared to outrun Axion’s Enforcers, when they came after him. Or rather, and this was if he tried to be honest with himself, he was far too curious to learn why the floating city was interested in Sector 7.

“They should be here somewhere,” he said a bit sharper than needed, but at this point, he couldn’t care anymore. Grey was a patient man, but the brats pushed his buttons at every step and managed to get on his nerves in just two days.

“What makes you…” Heather closed her mouth the moment Grey turned to look at her.

With a gas mask on, no one could tell his expression, forcing him to adapt. It took him years of careful control, but nowadays, people could see his feelings through the way he stood, leaned or simply pointed at something. Not that it was perfect – it was good enough. And right now, his posture was daring the brat to challenge him if she dared.

“Cake dislikes the Park and would not wander off,” Grey said levelly and returned the first aid box back in its designated place. “And I doubt, Joshua would be so brave to walk around alone…”

“Animals then…” the girl was not learning her lesson, so he stepped closer to her, teaching her what real intimidation looked like.

Standing head and shoulders taller and nearly twice as wide, he could see her shrink, despite the brave face she was putting on only a second ago. The nervous twitch in her cheek, the widening of her eyes and the clenched jaw, were all signs that she feared him. Not because Grey was a scary person, but because she had no idea what he could do and how far she could push before he snapped. And because they couldn’t survive without him and she knew it.

“If one of the local creatures got them, you and I would not be having this conversation. Instead, I would be searching its excrements for anything valuable left, after it has finished digesting you and your friends.” Of course, Grey was overexaggerating, but it was a good idea to keep the brats on their toes since they lacked quite the long list of survival skills.

As for the ones they had… Well, one look at how they had fanned out and were searching the area was clear to see that they were only mimicking something taught to them, without any understanding of why they were doing it. Actually, that was something that bothered Grey greatly. For all intents and purposes, they were Axion soldiers and their young age should have no impact on that. It was more than obvious that someone had gone to great lengths to train and equip them for this mission. Yet failed at teaching them the most basic of things.

Now, he was no expert in how soldiers should act – his parents were – and he would be the first one to admit it. But since he was Ash and Neige’s son, he had to learn some of the basics from the day he could walk. Knowledge that had saved his lifetime and time again, as much as it endanger it when he tried to apply the things, he learned in the smouldering remains of Val Roux, which he did not understand. In a way, he could see these brats do the same mistakes, unlike him, however, they were not willing to learn and correct what they did wrong.

Ignoring Heather’s protests, Grey made his way to the edge of the small island they had made into a camping site. In his mind, there were only possibilities to explain why both Cake and Joshua were missing. Either she had killed the Master Sergeant and was in the process of hiding his body, or they were around here hiding. Two teenagers, with raging hormones, going to somewhere where they wouldn’t be seen – honestly, Grey didn’t know which of his theories he wanted to be true.

He was not the girl’s father or related to her in any meaningful way for all that, but the thought of what she and Joshua could be doing made him wince. Right now, all he could see was that small frightened child, looking at him from the middle of the street, with her dirty torn dress and her mother’s arm nestled in her skinny hands. For the millionth time, he wondered if it had been mercy that he hadn’t killed her then and there, knowing very well that he would make the same choice. As he traversed the muddy line between the stale water and the hill-like island, Grey was glad to see that there were no tracks, except for the ones their group had made upon arrival.

Reigning in his thoughts and all the possible scenarios contained within them, he turned around and observed the plot of land. It wasn’t all that big, now that he paid attention to his surroundings. But at the same time, he also noted that there weren’t that many possible places where two people could hide. This made no sense. If the tourist had been looking for a while, they should have found either Cake or Joshua by now, and Grey would bet that there was some sort of a tracking device in their fancy protection suits.

“Heather,” he spoke without turning to look at the girl nagging next to him. So far, he had been ignoring her words, mostly because they were one long lecture about, he was a disappointment as a guide, and the last thing wanted to hear was these Axion brats questioning his sills as a Scavenger. “You have ways to track the position of the people in your squad, right?” He asked, this time turning to look at her, examining her flustered face.

At the very least, his question shut her up and she looked at him with her mouth open. Grey could see it in her eyes, she was about to tell another half-baked lie but stopped herself. Most likely the girl was weighing in her option and if sharing the truth would save the Master Sergeant.

“You have, but it’s not working as it’s supposed to, right?” He ventured a guess, hoping to speed up the conversation. It wasn’t that farfetched of a theory either. From what he had seen in regards to the high-end tech they were using and based on some of the stories he had heard in Leeroy’s bar, the people from Axion were really having trouble making their more complex devices work down here in the ruins of the mega-city.

“You can say that,” Heather admitted, her head dropping as she tried to avoid looking directly at Grey. He gave her a few seconds to collect her thoughts, all the while his frustration. with playing babysitter for these kids, growing. “The Master… Joshua’s locator was in his bag. He must have been running maintenance on it.”

“So, his gear is at the tents you people erected? Please tell me you bothered to check if he is in his tent.”

“Of course, we checked!” The outrage in Heather’s voice was genuine enough. Usually, Grey wouldn’t have bothered to ask such an obvious thing, but he was starting to have some major doubts about what the tourists were considering common sense. “The thing is, his and Miss Cake’s bags are on the east side of the perimeter…”

“For the love of…!” Grey snarled, barely restraining himself from punching the girl. Increasing his pace, he marched up the hill and shouted at the dumbstruck girl. “Idiots! The lot of you! They’ve clearly fallen in a sinkhole or a vent shaft!”

He paused long enough to double-check his revolver was loaded and ready to use. There was no telling what could have made a nest beneath their feet. What he said was true, it was more than likely that for some reason both Cake and Joshua had fallen in a sinkhole or an old vent shaft. After all, there were plenty of tunnels running under the Park and that was not counting the vast labyrinth that was the mega-city’s metro network. The veteran Scavenger was angry at the Axion pretend-soldiers for failing to notice something so obvious, and he was angrier at himself for not realising this sooner.

“And for fuck’s sake, tell your people to watch their steps!” The last thing he needed was to have to rescue more of the tourists or to have to deal with broken limbs.

Actually, that last one might not be as bad as he thought. It would be a great excuse to send the majority of them packing back to Véi Dron, or if he was lucky back to Axion. While he entertained such happy thoughts, Grey came at the place where Cake and the bratty teen had disappeared. And sure enough, a few steps away from their gear was a gaping hole in the ground. Only a child could claim to have missed it, hidden as it was in the knee-high grass.

Prodding carefully the edges, Grey moved closer to the opening. From this close, he noticed the rusty worn-out steps of a maintenance ladder. He let out a sigh of relief that it wasn’t a sinkhole while reminding himself that the support structure of the man-made hole was not to be trusted. One glancing look at the ancient ladder was enough to let him know that there was no chance it would support his weight.

Reflexively, Grey reached into the breast pocket of his jacket for the pair of glowsticks there. His fingers caressed the precious items as he pondered if using them was justified. Such items weren’t exactly easy to come by and were one of the Axion didn’t trade with those on the surface. He had been lucky to find a box of them a few years back, however, after trading a few with other Scavengers for medical supplies and the occasional meal, he had only a handful left to use in case of emergencies. A damn whole lot of emergencies. And this was Cake he was talking about. She was no tourist and could look after herself.

“Damn it, old man!” He cursed himself for having such doubts. “It’s Cake, not some Scav you barely know.”

With a steady hand, Grey picked one of the glowsticks and broke it, before throwing it into the darkness of the shaft. It didn’t drop for long, stopping at what appeared to be a festered pool of water and God knew only what. But more importantly, the yellowish light of the glowstick illuminated what had to be Joshua’s helmet. He felt a wave of relief wash over him at the absence of bodies. The middle-aged man hadn’t realised it until now, but he had been genuinely worried that he might find Cake’s broken corpse at the bottom of the dark shaft.

However, this also meant that they were no longer there, but had wandered off in search of an exit. Grey felt like an idiot. Of course, Cake would do something like that. It was hard for him to accept, but the girl had been going on solo runs into the depths under Véi Dron for at least a couple of years at this point. He lift his head to look at the gathered Axion pretend-soldiers – Grey liked the word and decided that he was going to call them as such – and scoffed behind his gas-mask. They were too curious to observe what he was doing and had forgotten to have someone keep a watch for potential threats. Even the wounded Elise had come, the stump on her left arm, where her wrist used to be, dripping small droplets of blood. Gritting his teeth, he bit back the sting of insults he wanted to hurl at them.

“You and you,” Grey pointed at Maité and one of the boys, whose name he couldn’t be bothered to learn, as he stood back up from the crouching position he had assumed to get a better look into the shaft. “Search the area in a six-hundred-meter diameter from here.”

“Oh, right.” He added before the pair could turn around and leave the small circle of bodies around him. “Mark any hole that’s big enough for a person to crawl in or out of. You do not go closer than fifty meters to the wall separating the sectors.” Grey raised his voice as he outlined the basic survival rules. “If there is an opening underwater, you do not search it. If the water gets a finger above your waist, you do not continue. Look for an alternative route instead. If something that’s obviously not human tries to come near you – shoot, ask questions later. Am I clear?”

“Yes, sir!” Both shouted at the same time and stop themselves short of saluting him.

With that over, Grey turned to Heather. “You take Elise with you and fix her bandages. It’s obvious she can’t do it alone.” He then looked at Joshua’s sister, addressing her in a harsher voice. “I don’t care if you die of blood loss. All I’m worried about is that while you do so, you’ll attract all manner of nasty creatures my way and I rather not deal with that.”

The dark-haired girl was about to protest, but a shake of Heather’s head was enough to silence her. For the moment, he would ignore her, since she was the only one having a reasonable excuse to not be thinking straight. Which left him four remaining tourists he could use as rats underground. Grey turned around to face them and blinked a few times, shifting his head from left to right, making sure his eyes weren’t playing a trick on him. He did the math again in his head just to make sure he hadn’t made a mistake.

“There should be four of you.” He stated bluntly and a little confused at the three remaining tourists.

“Constantine had a reaction to his wounds and is unresponsive.” Elise’s voice betrayed the pain her face was hiding.

Great! At this point, Grey wouldn’t be surprised if the fucking Children of the Apocalypse showed up to invite him and the tourist for a picnic and a game of hide and seek in the Park. Enjoy the clear weather and all that.

“I want a rope down the hole and a secure perimeter by the time I return!” He barked at the remaining three pail-faced brats, as he practically dragged Elise towards the group of small tents at the top of the hill.

Just a little over two days and half of them were dead, maimed or missing. He was done playing games with them. The ruins were not a kind place and didn’t tolerate incompetence. It was because of this only Scavengers went into the remains of the mega-city, while ordinary folk stayed within the boundaries of their settlements or the safe zone such as the one at Véi Dron. And these kids were not cut out for the former. Hell, they weren’t cut out to be farmers either. As far as Grey was concerned, they should have never stepped out from their shining city in the sky.

The experienced Scavenger almost tore the tent’s flap in his anger. There was no need to examine the unconscious kid laying on the ground. One look was enough to tell Grey everything. Face the colour of ash, slightly swollen lips turning blue, sweating buckets and as still as a corpse. Constantine would not make it back to the trading post, there was no nicer way of putting it. At best, the kid would be dead by tomorrow morning.

Grey knelt next to the boy and mumbled a short prayer, then he took the knife strapped to the side of his bulletproof vest and expertly plunged it into the teenager’s artery at the side of his neck.

“What the Hell!?” Both Elise and Heather yelled at the same time, their faces frozen in a state between shock and rage. The weapons in their hands pointed at Grey, but he could see the gears turning behind their eyes. They were not sure if they should shoot him, or if she could physically do it with only one hand in Elise's case.

“If you honestly cared about him, you would have done it sooner.” He stated in a flat voice.

This was not a task he liked to perform; however, it was also something that had to be done. Otherwise, they would only be wasting food, medicine and water in a vain attempt to prolong the poor kid’s life.

“This is what happens when you make mistakes out here.” He left the two girls with those words and headed back to the vent shaft.

Grey was surprised to see that the pretend-soldiers had secured the rope and were keeping watch on the surroundings. Sadly, no one was paying the hole itself any mind. They are doomed, the veteran thought and shook his head. He didn’t have the time nor the patience to teach them how to survive amongst the ruins. Just in case he walked to the rebar they had used to secure the rope and made sure it was firmly stuck into the hard soil. After a few cautious tries, he was confident that at least it would hold until he reached the bottom.

“Two of you follow me.” He ordered the trio and grabbed the rope.

“Hold it!” Elise shouted, trotting towards him, her face twisted by hatred. “I don’t care who you are, or how important you might feel. What you did was wrong!”

“Squad, prepare to arrest the Scavenger.” The girl commanded in a rather impressive steel voice, and the trio of idiots pointed their rifles at Grey.

This was an unfortunate turn and one he was hoping to avoid. Grey was no fool. He was perfectly aware that he had no chance at overpowering all four of the Axion brats. But he had other options, and talking his way out of this mess was at the top of his list.

“Are you sure you want to do this, girl?” Grey made sure to keep his voice as level as possible and his hands away from the rifle dangling from the strap around his neck. “Please, enlighten me, what happens if you try to restrain me?”

“You don’t get it Scav! You are a savage playing at being a person!” Elise barked at him, but he could see doubt enter her eyes. “There is a word in civilised society for what you did, and that word is murder.”

Grey wanted to laugh at the accusation. He was expected all of this to be the result of some sort of misguided or misunderstood loyalty. But it was all about who had the moral high ground. Well, he had a few things to say about that topic.

“Correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t see a society around here. Last time I checked; the world went to Hell.” He couldn’t help himself and chuckle. Grey relaxed his posture a little and crossed his arms over his chest. “I’ll ask you again. What happens if you try to arrest me?” Every word of his question was spoken deliberately slowly emphasizing the last part.

“You do as we say and lead us to Sector 7 through the fastest route possible.”

This time Grey did laugh. He couldn’t accept that this girl could possibly be this naïve. “I don’t see what’s so funny. You are our prisoner.” She hissed at him, some of the previous steel returning to her voice, while the uncertainty in her eyes grew.

“Which way is Sector 7? How do you go through the wall? How do you deal with the automated defences guarding the security entrance? How do you open the doors without the master card Joshua carried? What do you do if there are Wardens present? Acid fog trap? Weepers infestation? Thorn Vines? Chameleon Spiders? The fucking Bogyman?”

He spat the question one after the other, not giving Elise any time to answer or even think about any of them. However, Grey was not done.

“Can you trust that when the next door opens, it wouldn’t be a trap I led you into on purpose?” He was a bit sad that she could not see his smile underneath his gas-mask. This time he allowed her time to process his words. And with some satisfaction, he noted that the trigger-happy pretend-soldiers had lowered their weapons and were looking at Elise for guidance.

“I suggest you do yourself a favour, and when we find your precious brother, you get marching back to Axion, while there is still something left of you. Enjoy the life of decadence your floating city offers and forget about ever stepping foot on the surface. You. Do. Not. Belong. Here.”

He turned his back to the girl and stood at the edge of the hole. She would need time to cool off and come to terms with the truth in his words. Grey planned to destroy her entire moral system, however, after his tirade, it just didn’t feel right. A part of him hoped that they would heed his advice, while another part, the hardened Scavenger part, calculated how much food, water and meds he could salvage from their corpses and if it would be enough for him and Cake to move further into the unexplored parts of the city.

Before he rappelled himself down the vent shaft, he added. “I don’t care if you like me or not. I gave you my word that I’ll take you to Sector 7. But for that to happen you better step off your moral high-horse and start listening to what I tell you.”

Grey paused for a second, unsure if speaking the next part was prudent or not.

“You call what I did murder. I call it mercy. Your friend was going to die and if I hadn’t stepped in, you would have only prolonged his suffering and wasted valuable resources indulging your guilty conscience.”