At night he was starting to see his breath. He didn’t know whether there were settlements nearby or worse, Peaks, so he dared not light a fire. But he was used to the bush. On his overnight hunting trips, his uncle had insisted they have insulation underneath them. “More heat escapes into the cold ground than into the air.” The trees around him were evergreens. Their boughs would make good insulation and provide some comfort. He cut enough to layer a bed and to pull over him in a green blanket.
The next day, he scouted the area around the fuel depot. There were no signs of habitation. He considered moving along the tracks to a spot where he could leap onto the train after the Peaks boarded, but the cliff closed in past the fuel depot. So he hunkered down to wait, eking out portions of the dried foods he had scavenged from the ruins of his village.
The day after, another train came. One or two of the cars looked promising. He slipped through the protection of the bush to a point just in front of them. But after the Peaks walked the length of the train and prodded into the open cars, they stood by the tracks as the train began to move, leaping aboard the last car as it passed them.
For the first time since he started his journey, Darius despaired. He could wait for the next train, but after that, he would be out of food. Worse, the night before had seen a dusting of snow. The weather was about to become colder than his evergreen boughs could handle. He had two days of food left. He couldn’t spend it waiting here, exposed, next to the tracks.
He shouldered his pack and started walking along the rails. The sky was overcast, dark clouds gathering to the west, the air getting colder, seeping through his coat, chilling his face. He knew how to read the weather. The intensifying snowfall was about to become a blizzard.
The wind picked up, the snow began to thicken. But these weren’t the soft fluffy flakes he had played in when winter descended onto the farm. These were small, dry, frigid. Tiny missiles hurled by the gathering gale, slicing into him, sticking to his face in an icy mask. He was laboring, struggling to keep pushing forward against the hammering wind, but his efforts didn’t give him the warmth of work. Cold and fatigue were slowing him down. He needed what little strength he had left to find shelter, but to one side, the ground dropped off into a swirling vortex of snow. To the other, the cliffs pushed hard against the right-of-way. Then he came upon a clearing. The spot was nowhere near a refueling station. Even if the Peaks glimpsed a fire as their train passed, there would be nothing they could do.
He stumbled into the clearing. The howling wind bent the trees, clumps of snow from their branches crashing down beside him. He was shivering now, his hands clumsy as he scraped away a layer of snow, scrabbled for small twigs, and heaped them into a mound atop some dry moss. He struck his flint. Hammered at it. Swore at it. A spark leapt into the moss. He breathed onto the tiny ember. A small flame caught, seized onto a twig. He smelled the pungent aroma of smoke, felt a tingle of warmth. The fire was born.
That night, he huddled next to the flames, now a full blaze. Heat was starting to edge into his bones. He cut some evergreen branches, made up a bed, and lay down in the glow of the flames.
The wind pounded through the trees all that night. The snow built up around him. He dozed, coming awake every hour or so, fearful that his fire would die out. At some time, he must have dropped off to sleep because he awoke with a start. Snow covered the evergreen boughs he had pulled over him, but embers still glowed in his fire. He added wood, but when he tried to go back to sleep, the snow, thicker now, forced him to huddle nearer the flames.
The storm continued throughout the next day and night, but the following morning, it subsided. The sun had risen. And he had eaten the last of his food. In the cold calm of the day, he could see his surroundings for the first time. This place was no good for hunting. The ground around the clearing was too steep. He had to find a more favourable spot, which meant leaving his comfortable bed, his warming fire.
He started along the tracks where the storm had dumped about a foot of snow. He trudged for three or four hours, the sun low and heatless in the southern sky. The cliffs to his right yielded to more gentle terrain, while to his left, the tracks swung away from the abyss, now passing through a forest, evergreens towering on either side.
The track crossed a path, wide enough for a wagon but not much more, overgrown with weeds tall enough to poke through the snow cover. Perhaps it would take him someplace where he could make a semi-permanent camp. He started along it, searching for some place where he could hunt, maybe even settle down for a few days.
About a mile along, he came upon a clearing. He could make a fire here, build a rough shelter from branches. There would be game. Rabbits, grouse, maybe even a deer. He would make a bow and some arrows and look for tracks in the snow.
He began gathering twigs for a fire when a flash of light stabbed into his soul. Peaks. He dropped to the ground. There it was again. It was immobile. Something had caught the afternoon sun and reflected it back to him. He listened, but aside from a breeze blowing through the trees, there was no sound.
He crept to the side of the path and crouched forward following it toward the flash. He couldn’t see the light, but he had tracked it and calculated where it was. Sneaking through the bush, he came upon a smaller path that led up a grade. Part way up the hill was a house.
16
RECRUITMENT
Ivan Kryss led Todd Baxter to a building at the outskirts of the city. In contrast to most government offices, this was squat, windowless. It looked as if it were part of the ground, an extrusion of the bedrock on which it sat. Kryss leaned forward for a retinal scan and entered a code onto a keypad. Inside, guards stood, feet spread apart, automatic rifles trained on the two of them. They passed through a security gate and into an office where a uniformed man sat. He reminded Baxter of a linebacker, as solid as the building around him. The nameplate on his desk read Captain Roger Addison.
When Kryss introduced him, Addison didn’t offer his hand but nodded his head toward a seat. Kryss sat in the chair next to him. Addison scrutinized Baxter as if he were a specimen under a microscope. “Baxter, what I’m about to tell you is confidential and secret. We’ve looked at your background. You have current secret security clearance, so you are qualified to participate in this program. However, if you violate any terms of secrecy or confidentiality, you will be punished. Understood?”
“Yes. That’s been explained to me.”
“Baxter, I want you to understand just how serious this is. I promise you, just as I’ve promised everyone else who works here, that if you betray any confidences, life in prison will be your best outcome. Is that clear?”
Baxter saw himself as hard to intimidate. He’d had to face down aggressive executives of major companies. But here, he was certain that if Addison thought he’d blabbed, he wouldn’t live long enough to get to a trial. He forced his voice over a spasm of panic. “Yes, it’s clear.”
“Good. Tell me, Baxter, what is your opinion of the demonstrations we’ve seen in recent months?”
“The demonstrations?” The question was puzzling. “What do you mean?”
“It’s a simple question, Mr. Baxter. What is your opinion of the demonstrations?”
Baxter had learned to distrust any question from any client that asked him his opinion about anything. There was too much to lose. So he was tentative when he said, “I suppose both sides have their positions. I’d have to know which demonstrations you’re talking about.”
Addison studied him. “Okay, you’re tiptoeing. I get it. So let me give you my opinion and you tell me whether you agree. These demonstrations are damaging this country’s economy. Agree or disagree?”