Erik Otto - Detonation

Preston was always much bolder than Owen, and could see him boasting about some tinkering discovery he’d made. But Preston wasn’t stupid either. Most likely they reported Owen at the salvage store. He shouldn’t have bought so many transistors and spools of copper wire.

The squad walked in silence for a while, a bout of rough terrain requiring greater attention. They were navigating down a steep bank in the hillside laden with loose stones.

“Have you been on any other forays like this?” Owen asked Jakson after the more treacherous stint had passed.

“Yes,” Jakson answered.

It was a prickly question, so Owen didn’t push it.

A few minutes later, Jakson was more inclined to elaborate. “One of the first times was during the raids in the valley, six years back,” he said. “It was bent up pretty good but still worth it. We brought back twenty-odd SLS prisoners and took out twice as many. It probably stopped them from messing with us for a while.”

“Wouldn’t that make them want to get the prisoners back?”

“Yeah, but they think we’re messing up the soil and the sun, or whatever. As a result, when prisoners have been in our lands too long, they think they’ve been corrupted. Was probably worse for them than killing them. Funny how that worked.”

Owen had seen a few of the Essentialist captives around Seeville. Most were treated like animals, chained up and forced to do some unpleasant task like demolition or sewer maintenance. They wore black frocks that had converted to brown because they were usually covered in so much filth. They always smelled something awful. They didn’t call them SLS for nothing.

The group passed a ravine on their right side. It was a dump for rusted-out Old World cars and trucks. From their altitude the cars looked like a bed of orange pincushions perforated with holes. On any other walk, Owen would have wanted to take a closer look, to see if there was anything salvageable.

Owen looked up to see Jakson watching him closely. “You go right ahead Owen. Go right ahead and bang around in a rusted-out car park in the middle of SLS territory.”

Owen responded to Jakson’s sarcasm with a light-hearted roll of the eyes.

They navigated down the steep descent for a good part of the day and then headed due west near the valley floor. There was virtually no sign of Essentialists except for a few well-trodden paths through the forest. They took care to cross the more frequently used paths in stealth and silence.

In the early afternoon Noke halted them at the edge of a small clearing. They stooped low and saw a burned-out trough in the middle of the meadow. The trough ended in a dark mound with a few metallic spots on it that were glinting in the sun.

Cecile was frowning. “ Bien sur , this is it. Let’s first scout the periphery, around the clearing, then I want Noke and Jakson to stand guard while Preston and Owen help me with the satellite.”

They skulked carefully around the field, looking for signs of Essentialist activity, but found none. Then they left the cover of the forest and approached the satellite cautiously, while continuing to cast furtive glances at their surroundings.

The satellite was smaller than Owen expected, the diameter less than the height of a man.

Cecile touched the mound cautiously, as if it might still be hot. She examined a number of the exposed metallic parts and then stood up and held her finger to her mouth in thought. “Start digging here, and here.” She pointed to two areas near the bottom of the mound. She took off her pack and pulled out two collapsible shovels.

Preston and Owen got to work. In some places the earth was easy to move, but in others it was hard-packed from the impact of the satellite. After a few attempts, they found a softer area that more readily allowed digging. When they had unearthed what they could with their shovels they used their hands and knives to clear off the metallic surface.

Their efforts revealed an exposed handle next to three inset dials and a directional pointer. Above the dials there were arrow symbols pointing in several different directions. Cecile turned two of the dials to match the arrows. The third appeared to be stuck, but she was able to adjust it with the aid of her knife. She pulled at the handle.

And just like that, the exterior wall of the satellite opened.

The metal walls around the latch looked to be almost a foot thick. Cecile lit a match and carefully lowered it to see inside. After looking at the contents, she blew out the match and stuck her arm all the way in, grasping for something.

“You’ll be happy to hear we won’t need to test your knowledge of electronics today,” she said to them. “They made it easy for us.”

“Who’s they?” Preston asked.

She frowned and put her finger to her lips.

As she wrestled with the contents of the satellite, she whispered, “ zut alors .”

She pulled out a rectangular, metallic box, not much bigger than her hand. She looked at it with a frown of confusion and then handed it to Owen. “Hold onto this.”

Owen cradled the object carefully with two hands, as if Cecile had given him a newborn baby. He looked more closely at the box. There was some kind of keypad on the side of it. He nervously glanced at the sky, searching for any sign of retchers.

Cecile stood up. “Preston, there’s more in there, but I can’t reach it. You’re tall, see if you can grab anything else.”

Preston positioned himself against the side of the satellite and began grappling with the interior with his extended arm.

Cecile examined the box in Owen’s outstretched hands. She took out a pad and scribbled on it with a pen, as if doing some kind of calculation. She examined the exterior dials on the satellite latch periodically. Owen was entranced by Cecile’s concentration as much as the box itself. This was Old World tech. How did she know what she was doing?

Owen was the last person to believe in Adherent superstition, but this Cecile woman was indeed making him nervous. Jakson and Noke would steal occasional glances back from the forest edge. They were also looking at Cecile with some concern. Maybe she was some sort of witch?

After finishing her doodling, she looked about to punch something into the keypad and then reconsidered.

Suddenly, Jakson was standing right next to them, a grim look on his face. He spoke clearly but quietly, “I hear their call.”

Cecile looked up, breaking out of her concentration. “ Pardonnez moi ? Their call?”

Jakson’s face was riveted with intensity. He spoke with emphasis and control, “the… fucking… SLS. It’s like crickets chirping. They could be watching us.”

Cecile’s head swiveled around, scanning the surrounding forest. “Where…?”

Jakson grabbed her arm firmly. “Don’t let on,” he said.

When her head stopped turning he let her go. His hand came away from her arm in a calming motion, while his eyes were drilling into theirs. “If I’m right it means there’s more than one of them. There could even be more than one group of them.”

“Noke, Preston—come here, now,” Cecile said tersely.

“What’s this all about?” Noke asked as he made his way over. Preston joined them a moment later.

“Jakson thinks he hears call signs from the SLS. We’ll head back the way we came. If Jakson’s wrong, and there’s no activity, we can always come back. Jakson, you take the rear with Owen and Preston.”

“The box, please,” Cecile said, extending her hand to Owen.

Owen carefully handed the box to Cecile, and she placed it in her pack with similar attentiveness.

“Ready?” Cecile asked. Everyone nodded.

It was all happening so fast. Owen had certainly not heard any fake cricket calls, never mind any real crickets. They had seen no signs of Essentialists all day.