9: Big bang practise

PART TWO: The Wastes

Battered boots crunched along the dry stream bed. Resolute plants gripped grimly to the sides of the bed here and there, waiting for rain that never seemed to come.

“You try’n a make a poem or somet?” the brash voice stirred Samson from his thoughts.

“What?” he said irritably

“You were mumblin’ somet ‘bout stream beds”

Samson stopped and turned back toward Harmony. Her broad frame carried most of their equipment, the bandana across her forehead dark with sweat. It was her first day working for him and he’d have happily fired already for being quite so annoying, but her strength was largely unmatched in the town and her lack (to put it mildly) of intellect was an advantage for a man of secretive means such as he.

“I was simply remarking about the parched environment we find ourselves in” a tatty dreadlock swung down in front of his eye. Samson was aware of the ancient story and that having long locks of hair played up to the fable. But he’d never been strong; part of him wondered if maybe he cut his hair then the strength would come in some twisted mirror version. It was an experiment he hadn’t felt the need to try so far in the twenty something years of his existence. Samson didn’t need immense strength--that could be hired--Samson had his brains. Samson had his entrepreneurial spirit. Samson was going places.

“Where are we goin’ zactly?” Harmony intruded on this musing once again “Weren’t we here a couple of hours back?” she gazed around as she said this, hand shielding her eyes from the glare of the high sun.

“It is sometimes necessary to retrace our steps” Samson extracted a creased piece of paper from his own small backpack as he said this, kneeling down so as to be able to spread it on the ground. “But I am confident that I am near a break through” he tapped the piece of paper, a pencil drawn map, as he said this.

“This breakthrough got somet’ to do with this bloody heavy bag you’ve got me lugging round?” seeing that Samson had paused to look at his map, Harmony swung the large ruck-sack down from her shoulders, dropping it on the dusty floor.

“Careful with that. Delicate equipment inside” Samson chided her.

“Soz” she said with no real hint of remorse as she followed the bag and sat on the floor, unhooking a water canister from he utility belt as she did so.

"Don't get too comfortable" Samson was staring at his map as he said this "As I will soon need your assistance"

Harmony took a glug from the canister, thin stream of water dripping off her square chin. "What I gotta do?" she enquired after taking her fill of water.

Samson ignored her, instead folding the map back up and slipping it into a back pocket of his ragged trousers. He then moved over to the ruck sack Harmony had unceremoniously dumped on the floor and set about unfastening it. Curious as to what she'd been heaving round for much of the day, she moved to join him, peering over his shoulder.

"What are those?" she tried a different question, screwing her face up in puzzlement at the small black devises that appeared to fill the bag.

"These are my map making equipment" Samson took out on of the devises and held it up. Sun rays glanced of its plastic body, thin and rectangular.

"Thought that involved compasses and stuff?"

"The more traditional cartographers would use such ancient artifacts, t'is true. But I have a more direct approach. An approach that will open a southern trade route to Millieville and make me rich" Samson smiled at the prospect, absentmindedly tapping the pocket containing his map as he did so.

"How they work then?" Harmony had grabbed another of the devices out of the bag and was prodding at it with sausage fingers.

"NO!" Samson snatched the devise from her "Do you want to get us killed out here in the middle of drakking nowhere? Idiot!"

For a second Harmony looked like she was going to hit him. Treyvin, a town councilman had warned Samson of Harmony's temper when he first considered offering her work. Samson flinched at her glare, a movement she seemed to take as surrender. "Don't be callin' me names" she said coolly.

Samson slowly nodded "I was simply alarmed was all, these can be dangerous in the wrong hands"

"They some kind of explosive?" her tone lightened a little at this, the prospect of fireworks eclipsing the prospect of violence against Samson.

"Not quite. Fifty or sixty years ago they were known as smartphones, a forerunner to the aug-specs and iris enhancements the tech-slaves in the Megatropolis all get"

"Funny lookin little things" Harmony had grabbed another phone, but held it more respectfully this time, looking at the inert screen.

"Indeed. But they got a lot of similarities to the tech in the war-drones" Samson looked warily at the cloudless sky as he said this "Location mapping, communication, gyroscopes, that sort of thing"

"So?" Harmony appeared to be struggling with even the elementary explanation.

"It's kind of like reverse fishing" Samson tried a slightly different tack.

"I like fishing"

"Good. Except out here, we don't want to catch anything"

Harmony frowned "That don't sound as much fun"

Samson mirrored his companion's frown, then grabbed the map back out. "Ok, you want to catch something first?"

Harmony nodded excitedly. Samson suspected she didn't quite get that this wasn't about actual fish. But he shrugged and continued, "When I give you this phone" he waved the one in his hand "I want you to throw it as hard as you can over...." glance down at the map "...there" pointing over the lip of the stream bed and away to the west.

"Throw it?"

"Yup, hard as you can"

"Then what?"

"Then we enjoy the show" Samson smiled.

"Uh, ok" Harmony said "Over there, right?" she nodded in almost the exact opposite direction to where Samson had pointed.

"Nearly, but more to the right. More. More. More. More. There" Samson instructed as she lumbered round. "Ok, get ready" he busied himself with the phone in his hands. He'd improvised the battery himself from old parts. It didn't hold much charge, but would be enough. The phone screen lit, boot up animation beginning. "NOW!" he thrust the phone at Harmony, who first took an uncertain look at it, then threw it as directed.

Samson let out a low whistle as he watched the small shape hurtle through the sky. His assistant sure had a good arm on her. The phone came down a good 50 metres away, kicking up a little puff of dust in among the arid scrub-land. "Excellent" he said "Now come lie here" he took up position on his stomach on the bank of the stream bed, head just poking above.

Harmony came up next to him. "Did we catch anything then?"

"We need to wait a little bit first" he grabbed the pair of binoculars that hung round his neck, putting them up to his eyes and scanning the sky. Less than a minute later "Here we go"

"What is it?" Harmony was also looking at the sky, but without magnification couldn't see anything.

"There" Samson pointed with one hand while using the other to pass the binoculars across. With the cord still round his neck, his head was jerked toward Harmony as she brusquely grabbed them to hold to her face.

"Just looks like a grey dot"

"A grey dot that is about to make things hot and explodey. Get down" he attempted to scoot back down the side of the stream bed, but was still connected to Harmony via the binocular cord. "Gah, come...on" he pulled first on Harmony, but that was like trying to pull a rhinoceros, so he pulled at the cord instead which gave way, allowing him to skid down the dry bank.

"I want to...." she said, still perched at the lip of the bank, but looking down at Samson. He wouldn't get to hear what it was she wanted, as Harmony's request was drowned out by a flash of light, massive bang, then a rainstorm of hot ash and rubble.

His ears rang and lungs felt like they'd been coated in a layer of sandpaper, but Samson was otherwise unhurt. He clambered back to where Harmony lay, to start with fearing the worst, but soon spotting that her chest was moving. Using an old branch as a lever, he turned he onto her back. Stunned eyes looked up at him.

"I did tell you to get down" he said, hurriedly checking her over for signs of major trauma. The ear that had been turned towards the explosion as she had looked down the bank at him just before the attack wept a milky red, the eardrum presumably ruptured. But at least she hadn't had her face pointed straight on.

"The side of my face feels hot" she complained

"You'll live. Hold this" he gave her a rag to hold against the damaged ear.

"What happened? Thought you said that those smart phone thingies weren't explosive"

"They are not, but the war-drone it attracted has enough explosives for everyone"

"Attracted? Like a fish?" realisation blossomed on her face, which then hardened "Why you be fishing for those things?

Samson sighed "If you paid attention, I said it was like reverse fishing. I don't want to attract them. In fact, when the phones don't attract them, that means I'm onto something. If I can trace the limit of their patrol-zones then I can work out a trade route" he slapped his legs like it was easy, a small cloud of dust emerging from them.

"How comes the phones attracts em?"

"That'd need a bit of a history lesson" he looked unsure at Harmony laying there in the dirt, bloody rag gripped tightly to the side of her face

"What? You lookin' at me like I don't like learnin' stuff? I ain't thick, you know"

"No?" Samson didn't mean for it to come out sounding like a question. He suspected that if Harmony had been feeling better he'd have attracted a slap. He pressed on "Ok, so it stems from the early part of the Wars. Everyone was pumping out drones, easier to fire a missile from ten clicks away then risk boots on the ground. More politically acceptable, voters don't like seeing bodybags but they do like being told that their side is kicking arse on the other side of the planet. The thing with drones, though, is that you still need people back home piloting them. And that remote connection was vulnerable. So they set to making automated drones. Gave them a crude checklist, an area to patrol and have them hunt down the bad guys by themselves"

"And the phones?"

"Used to track the bad guys. Anything that gives off a signal or has a bit of processing power is like catnip to a war-drone."

"That why we ain't allowed any of that fancy big-city tech in town?"

"Exactly. Everything got out of hand, this sort of stuff always does. Drones used to build and repair more drones, try and outnumber the other sides. Except they're doing the same thing. Soon the drones are told to attack anyone within a patrol zone, the public herded to the big cities, for their own protection of course"

"Wow"

"That's not the most drakked up bit, though"

"Then what is?" Harmony's eyes were wide.

"Governments came and went, as did peace deals and decommissioning attempts. But the drones persisted. No one had thought to put in an easy way to call them off, as that would be open to manipulation. The War is long over, but half the planet is uninhabitable"

"Drakk"

"Indeed. Don't they teach you this at school any more?"

"I weren't at school much. Had t'help on the family plot. Plus, nearly being blown up sorta focuses the mind a bit on the bigger picture. Know what I mean?"

"That I do Harmony, that I do" maybe she wasn't so bad after all, mused Samson. "So you want you mind focused a bit more?"

"Not if it mean getting blown up again"

"Well this time, do as I say"

Harmony nodded her assent

"Excellent" Samson scrabbled back to the lip of the stream bank "Come on back up"

"Really?"

"Uh-huh, just no sharp moves, follow my lead" Samson slowly stood up, Harmony pausing, then copying his movement. "Now put your hands out by your sides, palms showing front". Again she copied, bloody rag dropped to the floor in order to comply.

In front of them the dust from the war-drone's missile attack had settled. The scene of bleak scrub-land was largely unchanged from prior to the attack, just now with the addition of a large blackened crater.

And two bipedal drones surveying the scene.

"Stay put" Samson saw Harmony flinch at the sight, ready to make a run for it "They are quicker than you and a hell of a lot more deadly. Don't given them an excuse to chase you"

"What are they?"

"Clean up crew, come to make sure the aerial hit did its job, chase down and finish off any stragglers"

"Do we not count as, er, stragglers?" Harmony was nervously speaking in hushed tones out of the side of her mouth. She was staring at the strange beasts, reverse knee jointed like some kind of massive emu, severe amount of weaponry clamped to their bulbous mid-sections.

"We're outside their patrol zone, we're obviously unarmed and not doing anything suspicious like trying to hide or running away" the two drones turned their sensor pods toward them for a while, then lost interest. Kicking up dust, the two drones headed away from them at a brisk trot.

Harmony let out a slow sigh of relief at the sight "How'd you even learn all this?"

"The hard way"

"You're still in one piece though?"

"But you're my twelfth assistant"