11: Tents

"Come on, come on, come on, this time, please" Samson sat curled up with his head between his knees and arms wrapped around his shins, rocking gently. There was a thundering explosion on the other side of the hill to which he was sat on. "DRAKK IT" he cursed, standing up before the hail of debris had finished falling, a small rock catching him painfully on the brow.

"Geez, I thought for sure this time would be it" Harmony was more cautious getting up, slowly heading to join Samson as he walked to the top of the hill. At the crest they took up their now familiar pose - arms out by their sides, palms facing forwards - as the two bi-pedal drones dashed towards the location of the missile strike.

"Me too" Samson grunted, before spitting a dirty globule to the floor by his tired feet.

"You reckon they're the same ones?" Harmony asked, nodding at the drones

"Same ones what?"

"That came to check out the previous drakk-knows how many missile strikes"

"Probably. Unless we crossed an overlapping patrol zone"

Harmony frowned "Then how comes they don't recognise us? That no part of their robot brains goes Hey up, we keep getting called to massive explosions, then I keep seeing those two people staring at me?"

"Because, essentially, they are really thick. They were built an age ago, remember. The designers were making things up as they went along, trying to get stuff built quickly as possible for the war effort. The more complex they made the drone's software the longer it would take to get right and the more stuff that could go wrong out in the field. Much easier to say go here, shoot at object x if it does activity y."

"And now we can't do anything about it? Other than lobbing phones at 'em that is?"

Samson gave a rueful grin in response "You see how twitchy the sheriff got last night?"

"Uh-huh" Harmony grunted her reply.

"Well she's 99% batshit over-the-top. But the other 1%, it's on the right track. We try to tech up to try something against them, the town gets wiped out. Drones be-dumb, but they know how to spot a threat from 200 miles away" he watched as the two bi-pedal models moved off, satisfied the target had been destroyed. Turning, Samson headed off back down the hill, Harmony close behind.

"What about the folk in the Megatropolis, can't they do anything?" she asked when the two of them were back at the base of the hill, Samson rooting round in his backpack for a pencil.

He shrugged his shoulders "Who knows. They don't really care about us little people in the Wastes. Even if they did, what could they do exactly? The Megatropolis is big for a city, but the scale of the Wastes and the horrors within makes it look like a tiny grubby diamond in a sea of shit"

"Eww. Anyone ever said that you got a way with words?"

Samson smiled, partly at Harmony's distaste, but main because he'd finally found a pencil. Pulling his map out of a dusty pocket, he set to updating it. However, any lingering pleasure was soon to evaporate at the sight of the map. He sighed, looked up, then back at the map, before scrunching it in his fist.

"Wassup?" Harmony loomed over him

"It's a dead end" he replied simply, before expanding "We've now tried all routes, my stock of phones is running low and that drakking sheriff is going to be all over me back in town" at this he threw the balled up map. The pitiful distance the map went highlighted why Samson hired physical labour, dropping as it did only a metre or so from Harmony's foot. She lent down to pick it up as Samson began to walk back the way they'd came, head bowed.

Unscrunching the map had the opposite effect on her face, which screwed up in concentration. She turned it round a few times, then looked up at the departing form of Samson. "Ere, Samson, when did we go past a row of tents?" she called. Samson stopped, footsteps halted by the nonsensicalness of the question he just heard.

"What?" he asked irritably, turning back to Harmony.

"On the map here" she stabbed at the page in her hand with a meaty finger "I can see where you've marked our, what did you call it? Backwards fishing?"

"Reverse fishing" he corrected, walking back to join her.

"Yeah, that's it. So you mark all those places and I can see that they surround us here. But there aren't any of those marks the other side of the tents. Look" she thrust the paper under his nose.

"Tents?"

"Yeah, little row of them just there" more jabbed pointing

"That's not tents, it's the cliff face next to the old train track we followed here"

"Dun't look like a cliff"

"Did I claim to be a brilliant artist?" he asked irritably.

Harmony frowned some more "So why didn't we reverse fish at the cliff?"

"The small matter of it being about one hundred metres high. You've got a decent throw on you, but not that far and not directly upwards"

"Couldn't we climb it?"

"The path that leads up it" Samson's turn to point at a line on the map "is overlapped by a patrol zone here" his finger moved to the location of one of their earlier phone throws.

"I could climb the cliff face itself" Harmony declared

"You?" Samson couldn't help but disdainfully glance her up and down.

"Uh-huh. When I were a kid me dad used to say I climbed about the house like a rat up a drainpipe"

"You're just a bit bigger now though"

"So what? Principles still the same. Just need some rope and stuff"

Samson looked unsure

"You wanna find this trade route or not?" Harmony demanded.

"Sure. But I just don't want you falling off a cliff on me. Sheriff is breathing down my neck enough as it is." he paused, Harmony was gazing at him "What you looking at me like that for?"

"You've got sweet on me" Harmony smiled "Don't worry, most men do in my company after a while"

"Er, ok, we should, er" Samson floundered, but quickly regained his composure "Get back to town. Get some ropes."

"Sure thing, honey"

The next day, Samson found himself with a bit of thinking time. He had no idea how Harmony had got the idea that he was keen on her, but right now, dangling half way up a cliff, secured only by a knot that Harmony had seen done on a horse a couple of times, he would happily kiss her if he made it out alive.

If he made it out alive and the phone she'd thrown when she'd made it to the top about half an hour previously really hadn't attracted anything, well that was marriage material.

His shoulder bumped up against a rocky outcrop, the material of his jacket fraying and tearing. The rope hauling him up stopped.

"You caught on somet'?" Harmony yelled from about 20 metres above him

"Yeah, hang on" Samson managed to get a foot up against the cliffface and pushed away a fraction. His jacket tore a little more, but he was free. "Ok, try again" he called back up, more than a hint of terror in his voice.The upward journey resumed.

Nearer the top Samson swung round in the early-afternoon breeze. With his back now to the cliff he could look out over the valley through which they'd been exploring these few days past. He could make out Doddington easy enough, nothing more than a two street town a few miles to his west. South he could just about make out wood smoke hanging in the sky above what should be Millieville, but a range of hills blocked him from seeing the larger town itself. Only about 10 miles separated the two habitations, but the relatively short physical difference might have been galaxy spanning given the context of the war-drone infestation. But if he could bridge that gap, linking the fertile agricultural lands that spread out behind Doddington, with the main transit hub into the Megatropolis, well, that was big news.

"You gonna help at all or just dangle there daydreaming?" Harmony's voice rasped from the effort of hauling him up.

Samson managed to turn himself back round to the cliff face, where he could see that he was tantalizingly close to the top. After a little bit of scrabbling, he found a foothold and pushed up, grabbing onto the rocky top edge when close enough. Another tug from Harmony and he was lying belly down on the cliff top. He almost kissed the solid ground in relief, but managed to resist an act quite so melodramatic. Instead he stood up slowly and dusted himself down, before taking in the vista in front of him.

Three things stood out. The first two were the small dark shapes 30 or 40 metres away; the two phones Harmony had thrown when she herself had neared the top of the cliff. Rat up a drainpipe, she was not, but a capable, if slow, climber she had turned out to be. Samson had been quietly impressed. 

Two phones rather than one had been thrown to counter a previous mistake that had cost Samson an apprentice nearly three years ago. Then the one and only phone thrown, unbeknownst at the time, had landed awkwardly on a rock and immediately turned off, never sending a signal that could be picked up by a lurking war-drone. The assistant had wandered in to the patrol zone and never wandered back again.

That neither phone thrown by Harmony had attracted any attention was cause for celebration. But it was the third thing standing out that had really got Samson excited.

A building.

Humanity in the Wastes had coalesced in ragged groups at the edges of war-drone patrol zones and battle fronts. Doddington was sandwiched between three such zones, just a narrow route in and out to the north (with Samson exploring to the south). All other habitations or industrial zones had been abandoned amid the war and never returned to given the persistent drone menace in the years of the so called "peace". More than that, they had been abandoned quickly, leaving much behind. Finding a building left standing in the Wastes without war-drone coverage was potentially valuable say the least.

Samson did a bad job of playing it cool.

"We gonna check it out then?" Harmony nodded at the building

"Probably, er, nothing" Samson ran a hand along his dreads, tucking them back over his shoulder.

"So much nothing that you're twitching like a nervous school girl?"

"Am not" Samson endeavored to stay still.

"Fifty-fifty?"

"Say again?"

"Our split of the loot"

"What are you on about? You get your wage and that's that" Samson was slightly alarmed at what he saw as the lumbering assistant blossoming into a hulking trouble maker.

"I told you a hundred times that I ain't thick Samson. Not my fault if you never listened" it was like she was reading his mind. "Now, fifty-fifty, shake on it, done and dusted. Any more whining and it's seventy-thirty"

"Be reasonable Harmony..."

"Any more whining after that and I leave you up this drakking cliff" she thrust out a hand, and stared at Samson.

"Why does it seem like everyone wants to shake me down at the moment?" he asked exasperatedly, but shuck her hand none the less.

"You want shaking, I can shake you. But if we're partners, then I can help keep the Sheriff off your back, can't I?" she tapped the side of her head "I got a brain up ere fella, don't you be forgetting that"

"I don't underestimate people twice"

"Great" she winked at him "Now, partner, you wanna lead the way?"

The building was squat and black with a low pitched roof. Some kind of warehouse or factory was Samson's initial suspicion. But is was in a remote location, no main road or other obvious access point, which made very little sense. Answers would lie inside it, but getting there was a slow affair. Samson was being cautious, partly learning from his past mistakes, but also due to the fact he was very much more exposed than he would have liked. He didn't want Harmony to go in alone--who knows what she would break or pilfer--and he suspected she wouldn't go if ordered to anyway, their relationship had changed in weird ways recently. So slowly they edged forward, picking up the phones, checking they were still working, and throwing them further ahead. Harmony's last throw clanked of the side of the building, sound echoing around the rocky environment.

"You see a way in?" Harmony asked as they stood a little way away from the building.

"Nope, must be on the other side. More to the point though, you see any windows?" some nugget of trivia long forgotten was unfolding in a deep part of Samson's mind.

"Windows? Nah."

"Does it also look to you like the building is in a bit of a dip? Almost like a crater?"

Harmony squinted, then tilted her head "Sorta maybe" she said "Why?"

Samson ignored her "Also, do you here a weird clanking noise?" his ears had been ringing for most of the day, what with all the explosions, but the relative peace of the cliff climb and building approach had given them time to recover. And they were now hearing something he couldn't place.

"Now you mention it, yeah. What is it?"

This question Samson did answer "Absolutely no idea"

"So we go find out?"

"Yup"

"Wanna split up, I go one way round, you the other?"

"Nope" Samson was not afraid of being seen to be, well, afraid. "L-let's go this way" he nodded to their left then paused for a second hoping for Harmony to lead. She picked up on his indecision, sniggered, and moved off.

At the first corner of the building, Harmony paused and tentatively looked round. "Anything?" Samson asked, back pressed to the poly-composite building exterior.

"Nah. Think that sound is getting louder though" Harmony looked back from the corner "We keep going?"

"Guess so" Samson exhaled loudly and pushed away from the building, ready to go again, despite the nagging doubts in his mind.

They made it down the next side of the mysterious building without issue, again stopping at the corner.

"Entrance must be round here" Harmony had stopped, not yet peaking round "But sounds like the noise is coming from there too"

"Yup"

"So you, er, wanna go first?"

"Not really"

"Me either" both of them lent back against the building. "Whatcha reckon it is?" Harmony looked down at Samson

"A deranged killer drone waiting to obliterate us" he was worriedly staring into the middle distance, mind still racing.

"Oh"

"Indeed. But I kinda have a pessimistic mindset"

"Knowing what happened to your other assistants, I can both see where that comes from, and have no desire to add myself to that gruesome list"

"Understandable. We go round together then?"

"Ok. On three?" without warning she grabbed his hand and squeezed it tight. Samson wasn't sure if it was meant to be reassuring or to ensure that he didn't try to back out. He looked down at his hand, ensnared by hers, then looked up and nodded. She started counting, "One, two, two and a half, THREE" she yanked him round the corner.

Where they were immediately faced by a deranged killer drone waiting to obliterate them.