Paul Hardy - The Last Man on Earth Club

“So how do we do this?” asked Iokan.

Liss shrugged. “I dunno. I don’t play those kinda games.” Everyone looked back at the gorge.

“Perhaps a bridge might extend,” said Kwame. “We have two buildings on this side and two on the other side, facing them…”

“But where’s the bridge hiding?” mused Iokan.

“Maybe it’s a rope bridge!” said Liss.

“If it is a rope bridge, then where are the ropes?” said Kwame.

“Maybe it isn’t a bridge at all,” said Pew. “Maybe there’s a glider or something.”

Olivia downed a pill with a swig of water from her canteen. “Does anybody have any idea what this thing is?” No one ventured an opinion. “Bloody typical,” she said. “Right. I’m hungry, so we’re getting this thing working. Who knows machines? What am I talking about… Katie!”

“Yes?”

“Figure out how this works and tell us how to get across.”

Katie took a look inside one of the stone buildings, then came back outside and peered down into the gorge. “It is a simple mechanism,” she said. “There are arbalests in each of the towers, connected to spools of high tensile cable. The arbalests shoot the cables across the ravine to the opposing towers, where they are hooked into pulleys and shot back to the towers here. The cables form a suspension system. Chains hang from the cables and are run out across the ravine. Electromagnets hang from the ends of the chains. The cables are slackened and the magnets are lowered so as to connect to the bridge. The cables are then drawn up to lift the bridge into place.”

“And where is this bridge?” asked Kwame.

“The other side of the ravine.”

“I do not see it,” he said.

“It is the other side of the ravine.”

“I do not understand.”

“I see it,” said Pew. “Look!” He pointed out metal plates ten metres down the opposite cliff face. And gradually the others saw the pattern of weathering and cracks on the cliff wall that concealed a slab which could be pulled up and out to create a bridge.

“Right, then,” said Olivia. “Let’s get this bloody thing working.”

They beat the average time by a considerable margin, due in no small part to their collective skills. Katie’s analysis was accurate, although the process was more complex than she initially described. The controls for the mechanism were all logic puzzles of one kind or another, which Pew and Iokan worked on together. Kwame’s electrical skills found a use in several mechanisms that deliberately required repairs. Liss lifted heavy gears into place, complaining about the grease that inevitably soiled her clothes. Finally, the last moment of raising the bridge required each of them to operate part of the mechanism in a carefully co-ordinated way, and Olivia made sure that happened with judicious shouting and swearing.

Arbalests shot cables across the ravine, and then back again. Chains swung out along the cables; heavy electromagnets found the iron plates on the cliff wall; and slowly, the bridge of stone swivelled up on hinges set into the far side of the gorge. They cheered as it came up, and Olivia’s muttering about how they would finally get some dinner was met with laughter rather than the usual silence.

I left Veofol with the others to answer their questions about the trip, and asked Olivia to join me outside the room.

“I’m not bloody going,” she said, arms folded.

“Of course,” I replied. “If you don’t want to go then you don’t have to. I can appreciate how it might be difficult.”

“What do you mean, difficult?”

“Well, I know you have a problem with open spaces. Especially at night.”

“I don’t have a problem. I’m just careful.”

“Olivia, you’ve been living behind walls of one kind or another for something like fourteen or fifteen years, isn’t that right? It’s completely understandable if you only feel safe with that kind of protection, and you don’t even have to take part in the camping if you don’t want to—”

“You think I’m expecting revenants to come out of the woods? You must think I’m cracked!”

“Not at all. I think you have a perfectly understandable phobia. It doesn’t have to be logical for it to affect you.”

“Oh, and now you think you can get me to go by saying I’m scared, is that it? Well, stuff your psychology. I’m not going.”

“If you don’t think you’re up to it…”

She rounded on me, incensed. “Will you stop it! Stop trying to help! I don’t want your help!”

“I’m sorry, Olivia. You’ve got my help whether you like it or not. And you do need to participate, remember?”

“Oh, you’re not going to use that on me, are you…”

“Not at all. In this case, I would understand if you had a problem with leaving the centre. Although of course if you did join us it would go a long way to satisfying the requirements of your therapy. But I’m not going to make you go.”

“I don’t—” she caught herself and sighed. “All right. I’ll go. Or I’ll never hear the end of it, I suppose.”

The group trudged on to their objective — a circle of self-inflating tents, each one a dull silver dome glowing with a slight phosphorescence so you wouldn’t blunder into it in the middle of the night. Olivia had decided to stay with the group. I hoped this represented progress, but made sure we could get her to safety at a moment’s notice if she found it too difficult.

I rejoined the group at the campfire. They seemed happy to see me, still buoyed up by their success at the gorge, and offered a bowl of the stew they’d put together. But Olivia displayed clear signs of hypervigilance, a typical symptom of PTSD. When Liss returned from the toilet facilities and stepped on a twig, Olivia burst to her feet, a blanket dropping from her shoulders.

“It’s only Liss,” I said. Olivia swallowed hard and tried to calm herself.

“Right. Right. Only Liss.” She sat down again and gathered up her blanket, still tense.

“What did I do?” asked Liss.

“Nothing. Don’t worry about it,” I told her.

“Are you all right?” Iokan asked Olivia.

“I’m fine,” she snapped back.

“You’re a bit jumpy,” he said.

“I don’t like the woods. I’ve had bad things happen to me in the woods.”

“But it’s lovely!” said Liss.

“Yeah, it’s really nice,” agreed Pew.

“There’s fireflies! And we’ve got marshmallows!” said Liss, pulling a bag out from her pack. “Do you want some?”

“No I don’t!” said Olivia.

“Suit yourself,” said Liss, skewering half a dozen on a toasting fork and kneeling by the fire.

“I know what you’re scared of,” said Iokan.

“You don’t know a damn thing,” said Olivia, scowling.

“One woman in my unit came back from the Shizima Islands and she was the same way. She’d take cover every time there was a loud noise. She never got combat out of her head.”

“Oh!” said Pew, realising what the matter was. “Oh…”

Iokan looked over at Pew. “You know what I mean, don’t you?”

“I’ve never been to war,” said Pew.

“It doesn’t have to be war, does it?”

“No.” Pew looked into the fire.

“I don’t need any help,” said Olivia.

“If you want, I’ll stand watch when you sleep,” said Iokan.

She looked up, hardly believing him. “You’ll what?”

“I’ll stand guard for you.”

She huddled back into herself again. “Don’t need anyone to watch over me. There’s nothing out there.”

“I know. It doesn’t matter. I’ll keep watch anyway, if you want.”