Erik Otto - Detonation

It had to be a false alarm.

But Owen was no hunter or enforcer. Owen didn’t know the Essentialists.

“Go!” And they were sprinting back across the field.

That’s when bedlam ensued.

Arrows started whizzing past them.

Noke yelled out, “they found our exit!”

Owen could barely make out movement where they had originally come out of the forest.

Noke made sweeping motions with his hands to go back the other way. “To the other side of the field—the other side!” he yelled.

It was in one of these sweeping motions that an arrow impaled Noke’s arm. He let out of yelp of pain but seemed to be able to run, so they kept on.

The next time Owen glanced back, Noke had fallen.

“Keep going!” Cecile yelled.

Owen sprinted as fast as he could. Arrows continued to fall around them. He couldn’t tell where they were coming from, but wasn’t about to look around to find out either. Jakson arrived back at the satellite mound and waved them over.

The mound provided some cover, but the arrows were coming in from too many directions. It was hard to say how much they were still exposed.

Cecile yelled at Jakson. “Where! Where are they?”

Jakson had been peeking his head out occasionally, trying to assess the trajectory of arrows. He said, “I’m… I’m not sure. I think we should go that way.” He was pointing across the field to a nondescript part of the forest.

“What about Noke?” Owen asked.

Cecile gave him a dire look. “He’s on his own. Let’s go.”

They bolted from the satellite mound and another flurry of projectiles assailed them. It seemed like there were more arrows now. One flitted past Owen’s ear and hit Jakson squarely in the back.

“Fuck… me,” Jakson said, stumbling to his knees. Owen grabbed him and struggled to pull him up. “Come on!” he said desperately.

Thankfully Jakson could still stumble along, but it slowed them down considerably.

Owen and Jakson reached the forest a minute after Preston and Cecile. They took cover behind some thick poplar trees. The incoming arrows lessened.

Jakson was breathing heavily but seemed coherent. “They’ll try to reposition,” he said. “We need to scare them away.” He was grasping at his back, his actions aggravating his arrow wound. He grimaced at Owen, who was positioned behind the tree next to his. “You’ll have to do it.”

Owen ran over to Jakson. He pulled the rifle off his back holster and then ran back to his tree for cover.

All of a sudden they heard a loud bang. Owen dropped the rifle, thinking he might have fired it accidentally. Preston called out, “It’s Noke!”

Noke was limping across the field with his rifle out, heading toward the satellite mound. He fired again into the distant forest.

Cecile shouted at Owen, “Give him cover!”

Owen pointed the rifle in the same direction Noke was shooting and fired. Nothing happened, and he realized the safety was still on. He took the safety off, took a deep breath, aimed and pulled the trigger again. This time the shot went off, driving the rifle painfully into his shoulder.

He was too nervous, too jittery, and wasn’t aiming carefully. When he saw a flurry of color through the sight he reflexively pulled the trigger. The point was to scare them away. If he hit one, all the better.

Noke was most of the way back to the satellite mound. The arrows stopped raining down. Was it possible they had scared them away?

“Preserve your ammo,” Jakson said. He was wheezing.

Owen took the occasional shot, aiming more carefully now.

Through the rifle sight, Owen could see Noke had a broken arrow sticking out of his left arm. Blood also flowed from his leg and chest. He was grimacing in pain but still took the occasional shot from behind the satellite mound.

“Noke looks bad,” Owen said. “He might not be able to make it back without help.”

Cecile nodded. “You and Preston will need to go get him, but I don’t want to risk losing two to get one back. Use your sight. Keep looking at the edges of the clearing. Do you see anyone?”

Owen looked through the sight. It was fuzzy but he could see forms moving around behind trees where he and Noke had been shooting. There was also an unmoving body on the ground.

“They’re still there.”

“Well then, shoot them,” Cecile said.

His surge of nerves seemed to have diminished. He made sure the rifle was balanced and bided his time. When a man peeked out from behind a tree, he fired twice.

Looking through the sight, Owen could see the man had been hit. He was now writhing on the ground. Then he saw some of the others run deeper into the woods. “I… I got one. I think they’re running away,” Owen said.

“Good. Keep watching. Let’s make sure they’re gone before you and Preston go out there.”

Owen continued to survey the scene. He saw no sign of any others.

When he looked to Cecile, he could see she was holding the box she had obtained from the satellite in one hand. Occasionally she would look away from the clearing and puzzle over it.

Owen looked back through his sight, scanning the environs of the field again. There were no more signs of Essentialists. But what if he didn’t know what signs to look for?

When he looked back to Cecile, she was pressing on the numbered keypad on the side of the box.

It popped open.

Cecile was close enough to Owen that he could make out the inside of the box. Between thin, insulated walls was a small rectangular object with a black, glassy cover. Cecile wedged her finger beside it and extracted the object. It was extremely thin, the depth of a small stack of paper. The glossy black front was contrasted with a shiny gold back.

“ Incroyable ,” Cecile said, smiling wistfully.

The object seemed to light up Cecile’s face. Then a voice startled him. “Hello, my name is Gail. What’s your name?”

Jakson, Owen and Preston pivoted in all directions, looking for this Gail person, until they realized it didn’t come from a person at all. The voice came from the object.

It was a smartphone, a working smartphone.

No working pre-Detonation electronics had been found in a decade, as far as Owen knew, and certainly no one in Seeville had ever seen a smartphone, never mind one that worked. And here one was, right in front of them. A smartphone that worked, casting a pale glow on Cecile’s face.

Cecile tapped the surface and the light went out. Then she spoke with a note of urgency. “We need to leave. Go get Noke, and hurry.”

Preston and Owen ran out into the open. Owen leveled the rifle menacingly toward random patches of forest, while Preston did the same with his crossbow.

When they arrived at the mound, Noke croaked, “about time.” He handed his rifle to Preston. Preston and Owen each took an arm over their shoulders while holding the rifles in their opposite hands.

Noke cringed and gasped as they lifted him, but to his credit he supported much of his own weight.

It was slow going, but there were no more volleys of arrows. A emerging well of hope grew inside Owen. If the Essentialists had fled, they might all make it back to Seeville. Not only that, but they may have made a find that could change the fortunes of the Spoke people forever—a find that might prove to the people of Seeville that they need not fear Old World technology.

His optimism was short-lived, however.

When they made it back to the forest edge, Jakson was dead, his throat slit from ear to ear. And as for Cecile, there was no sign of her whatsoever.

Of all the changes happening in Grand Caverns, the new dojos felt the most alien to Flora. Triangular arches curved up at the tips of the roof, serving no visible purpose. Then there were the shiny floors, the translucent checkered interior walls, and the obsessive cleanliness.