Sak · Maps

Escape 01:07 Trust:Host

01.18.09 12:28
Section: Maps
Filed Under: Copyright - CC, Series

Samara stood silently, watching Robert as he lay sprawled out in the grass breathing heavily. She leaned back into the raiment’s resting position. Every detail became strange viewed through the raiment’s optics, as though watching some sort of living film, where moments pass by in frames that can be viewed over and over again, set apart, studied. She zoomed in on Robert’s face, watching as his jaw flared from the grinding of his teeth, and closer still to notice the wetness forming around his eyes, a small droplet sliding down his temple to merge and disappear into sweat. Samara closed her eyes for a minute, resting, and whispered to herself, “He doesn’t know.”

When she opened her eyes, Robert was sitting up and rubbing his legs. After a couple minutes he stood and started walking again, south through the alley. Samara watched him walk to the end of the block, and then pulled the raiment up and started after him. Over the course of the next several blocks, Robert stopped more often. At one point Samara watched him for a couple minutes as he leaned against the side of a house, looking as though he were about to collapse. “Are you from around here?” she said.

Robert lifted his head, looking around wearily, “Sorta, but not really.”

“Me either,” she said. “I was born in New Hampshire.”

“Oh, yeah?” Robert said, and started walking again.

“It’s funny how you end up places, isn’t it?”

“Yeah,” he said, exhaling heavily. “Coming from a military family I guess I should be used to being relocated against my will. You know, be more adaptable.”

“I know what you mean. There’s that sense of culture shock every time you end up someplace different. It’s like traveling to another country. You know that there will be things like markets for buying food, hospitals if you were to become injured, aspects of a society; but the language is different, there may be different customs or styles, and you have to find your way around.” Samara paused for a minute, watching him walk along. They had started to cross what was left of the University’s Greek Row housing, and were about to begin descending the ridge. “You seem to know where you’re going now,” she said, with a little laugh.

“Well, yeah, I’ve been walking around these streets for several years.”

“Too bad there aren’t any grocery stores or hospitals left, huh?”

“Yeah, I get what you mean,” Robert said. “I suppose that my sense of culture shock in this case is a little different. I’m right here, walking the same streets that I know from living in this city for more than ten years, and yet other things are different.”

“Yeah, waking up in a new place and trying to find your footing, trying to find your place, is a bit of a challenge.”

“You sound like you’ve been moving around a lot in your life, too.”

“Yeah, I’ve been moving around a lot, too,” she said, somewhat faintly. “I guess I just don’t run into many others.”

“Well, probably no others like me, appearing out of thin air.”

“Do you have any idea what happened with that? I mean, how that happened?”

“No. I was out for a jog, and then bam I fell flat on my face into a big-ass divot in the middle of the park. Suddenly everything was different. And I mean, radically different. You were there, what did you make of it?”

“I’m not sure what to make of it either,” she said.

They had been descending the hillside, following steps set into the east slope, and ended up emerging next to an apartment building near 51st Street. Samara started to hear a chirp, and pulled up her map. It zoomed and spun until she stopped moving, and then it zeroed in on her location, showing a small directional arrow. She panned the map, scrolling it to the location of a little blinking light. A readout appeared beneath the map in the same color: 47°39’14.26“N 122°17’27.67“W “Okay, I’ve got the location of the resupply unit,” she said.

Robert stopped, and started looking around. “Okay, which way?”

“It’s definitely down in Union Bay. We can probably follow Blakeley Street here and then cut south by 36th Avenue.”

“Alright, lets follow the trail for a while. It’ll wind around over that way.”

They walked quietly for a couple blocks. After passing 25th, Robert stopped on the trail next to a gray building, where he stood for several minutes staring at it. “I used to work in this building,” he said. “It was a great place to work, with a bunch of really bright, and wonderful people. Thinking about it now, though, I guess I didn’t fit so well in that world either.” He stood staring at the building for another minute in silence, then spun on his heel, and started marching along at a quicker pace. “Alright, let’s go get these supplies. I’m hungry.”

Following the trail for another quarter of an hour, Robert dropped down the berm and stopped next to a triangular building. He looked up and down 45th Street, and satisfied that it was clear, he then jogged across to some trees that encircled an apartment complex. He had just finished making his way down the next several blocks toward Union Bay, skirting along the edge of the apartment complex to stay under tree cover, when Samara whispered in his ear, “We have a problem.”

“What do you mean?” he said, ducking into some bushes just after having crossed 41st Street.

“They’ve picked up the signal for the resupply unit.”

“Who? Wait…Where are you?”

“I’m hiding in a tree line a couple hundred yards south of the building you’re staring at.”

“Gotcha,” he said, getting up and running around the building. He jogged through a tended area, across a path that wound around behind the building, and into a group of trees. Robert then crept along through the trees until he reached their edge, overlooking a meadow, and was able to make out what Samara was looking at. Down at the waterfront, a large raiment was walking along surrounded by several men. “I count four troops and a raiment.”

“Yeah,” she said. “I could probably suppress the troops a little. Long enough to grab the supplies, but I don’t stand a chance against that tactical raiment. He’d tear me apart in seconds.”

“So, what, are they going to take the stuff?”

“They can’t open it. It’s coded to this raiment. I suppose they could blow it up or something though.”

“No, I suspect if it’s giving off a signal, they’re going to hang out and wait to see who shows up to get it.”

“Yeah, great.”

“I have an idea,” he said. “But I’ll need my case that’s attached to the back of your raiment.”

“Can I just drop it, or will that damage it?”

“It should be okay, but where are you?”

Robert suddenly heard a snap and a thud to his left, about a dozen feet away from where he was crouched. The large rifle case he’d taken from Mitchell’s room in the apartment was leaning up against the backside of Samara’s raiment, still partially camouflaged until she shifted and it plopped down onto the ground.

“What’s your idea?”

“Give me a minute to have a look,” he said, shuffling over and picking up the case, “and I’ll tell you what I’m thinking.”

---

This is a work of fiction. None of the characters are real, including myself. Any similarities between what is depicted in the story and what exists in the real world are intentional coincidences.

[2] Comments