3

Cold

As the pair explored one thing became quite clear. The research facility was huge. Much of it was damaged and inaccessible, but even ignoring the parts they couldn’t access they still took hours to travel from one side of the offices to the other. The entire building must have been built underground as the theme of no windows continued. During his stay with the tribe the lack of windows severely messed with his sense of time. The only way Luke was able to tell day from night was by the sleep schedule of the various tribespeople, although even that wasn’t foolproof. There seemed to be a clear divide between the homeless scavengers and the hunters. The hunters slept and went hunting on a fairly regular schedule, while the scavengers just did whatever whenever.

With a few days of exploring Luke was able to create a mental map of sorts. He had tried a few more times to talk Jasla into letting him use the laptop and draw up a map on it but there was no prying it from their grasp. The office area consisted of several break areas with nearly full kitchens, a cafeteria with a massive industrial kitchen, dozens of offices, a few separate sections the size of football fields for cubicles, a twisting maze of hallways, a presentation room like an auditorium, and dozens of conference rooms. On and on the place went. There seemed to be three areas connected to the office, one seemed to connect to a living area, one to a sort of tram system, and an emergency exit. Each area had a large entryway with a reception area and waiting rooms, even the emergency exit which seemed an odd choice. The living area required keycards to pass, however even if Luke managed to find one the reader was clearly broken. The tram tunnels had collapsed at some point leaving an empty station. The emergency exit was the only usable entryway and was what the hunters used to go outside and hunt for food.

Wherever they were was ridiculously cold. Even just being in the reception area near the exit was too much for Luke even after he managed to borrow some of the fresher hides from Jasla. Jasla had described the area outside as nothing but ice every direction as far as anyone had managed to go. The Tribe only managed to hunt a few animals who seemed to wander into the area looking for food.

Tensions were high as the game was becoming more and more scarce. Luke had only been there for a week or so but even that little time he had seen several of the scavengers die, either fighting to the death over scraps, or starving to death. The number of scavengers didn’t fall though as more and more of the hunters either gave up going out into the frozen hellscape, or became too weak to go out even if they wanted to. It wasn't clear how long the tribe had been there, perhaps this sort of thing had played out before. It seemed possible that they would lose enough people and stabilize but currently things didn’t look good for their survival.

Eventually the hunters started a council of sorts to discuss the problem. Jasla was one of the most capable hunters in the tribe and was thus invited to join. Jasla literally dragged Luke along to the Council meetings even though there were no other ‘plus ones’ in attendance. The meetings were held every other day and Luke kept quiet through them while the hunters discussed the possibility of baiting more prey, leaving and building shelters along the way to try and find somewhere safer, or even forcing some of the scavengers to hunt. At one point someone had the idea to capture and breed animals for a steady supply of food, when they realized they didn’t have food for the animals an especially brilliant hunter suggested breeding the scavengers instead for the same purpose. Once that particular hunter had been roughly shown the way out, the meeting continued.

Days passed and no decisions were reached aside from yes they needed food and no they weren’t going to eat each other like the scavengers. Luke spent most of his time trying to think of ways to get more food, or escape from the cold. It was hard to say how far they would have to travel to find something warmer, or even if there was anything warmer. As he pondered something tickled his memory. He had heard something about food recently but where?

It took Jasla replaying Janet's video logs for English practice to jog his memory.

“Jasla! Turn on the first video of April 2259”

“What? Why? I’m practicing right now, go away"

“No really, Janet talks about food in that one, maybe we can find some"

With a growl Jasla turned back to the computer and began slowly… very slowly, checking the videos titles looking for April. Eventually they got the correct video up.

Janet appeared on screen looking excited, “We had a major breakthrough in food production today! With our endless energy source we managed to get the hydroponics up and running, that’s been running for some time and has supplied some of our food needs but today we finally managed to engineer a new breed of livestock, the lifecycle is incredibly short but they are able to fully sustain themselves off the crops in the hydroponics. If we expand the growing rooms and section the new fields off for the new chicken cow chimera… unfortunately and only temporarily named… Chows… we can support a much larger population. The logistics and maintenance departments are going to throw a fit when I tell them they will need to reduce the square footage of all the apartments by five percent and push the field walls further into the residential area but sustainability is king! I have to get back to work and figure out where the extra water is going to come from but we’ve done it! Signing off.”

“That might be doable…” Luke muttered

“What? How does that get us food now?”

“It’s possible with the power still running the hydroponics might still function. we need to break into the residential area, its just one door how tough can it be?”

Very tough. Jasla and Luke set up a camp next to the door separating the office area and the residential area and spent days trying to pry, smash, beg and reason the door open. Nothing worked. Whatever the door was made of it was strong. Luke had a few ideas he was hesitant to try. It might be possible to compromise the door and concrete wall with fire and heat to the point they could smash through, but IF that worked it would risk bringing down the ceiling that had already collapsed in the tram tunnels. It might be possible to bypass the keycard reader with some makeshift tools and parts from the office computers but that sort of thing was more Rick's area of expertise. Slowly digging through with kitchen utensils was out, they were on a bit of a timer.

Jasla had a few suggestions of their own but even their two heads weren’t enough to bring down this obstacle. As the two of them were nearing the point of giving up and looking for another way, someone from the Council of Hunters approached their camp.

“Jasla, you and your… The two of you are to report to the Council immediately"

Jasla, who had been reclining on a mostly intact couch in the waiting area, sat up narrowing their eyes at the newcomer.

“What for?”

“Come, you will be told when we arrive"

Without waiting the Hunter turned and walked away confident that they would follow. Luke looked to Jasla questioningly and got a short nod in return. It took an hour or so to make the trek back to the council room, a repurposed upper tier management office by the looks of it, and the entire trip was spent in tense silence. Luke couldn’t tell what, but something wasn’t right.

They were made to wait outside, when they asked they were only told the council had to prepare before they could be seen. Jasla was supposed to be part of this Council so what was happening? A short while later they were beckoned in. The Council room had undergone some changes since Luke had last been there. The room had taken on the air of a courtroom, there was a single small desk in the middle of the room with no chair. All around the perimeter of the room sat large desks with overstuffed recliners behind them, all facing the center.

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

“What is this?” Jasla demanded with just a hint of worry in their tone.

A hunter Luke couldn’t put a name to spoke up from one of the desks, “Jasla, the Council of Hunters has taken a vote and decided your punishment.”

“Punishment wha…”

Another hunter spoke over Jasla, “Your duties as a hunter have been neglected since you… met this outsider. The Tribe does not demand anyone go hunt for the tribe, however this is a time of emergency. You were aware of the state of things and took on the responsibility of bringing more food to the Tribe. Instead you have been lounging and wasting time with the outsider, only hunting just enough for yourselves.”

Another added “We must work for the Tribe as a whole , or we shall die, all of us wasted away and frozen. Every capable hand is neede…”

“ENOUGH, we don’t need to explain ourselves to you, your punishment is decided, either go out, both of you, and bring back some meat, or BE meat"

Luke’s eyes widened at that, they HAD been trying to get food, hell they almost had a source nearby, but they couldn’t explain as much to the council.

“We are getting food, there is food down here with us, it’s behind the door that wont open…” Jasla tried explaining anyway

One of the calmer hunters spoke up ignoring Jasla, “Jasla the Council of Hunters has made their decision, you have an hour to gather what you must, then you will leave through the Ice Door, you wont be allowed back in without food.”

And that was that. Jasla turned and stormed from the room, Luke hot on their heels. Luke only followed wordlessly as Jasla made their way to their old room. It had been ransacked, likely some scavengers looking for anything they could eat. Seeing that there was nothing of value they turned and headed back out. This could be a problem, they hadn’t brought any weapons with them for hunting, hell Luke didn’t have any cold weather gear, and they didn’t have enough time to return to the camp where they had left it all.

The kitchen had been picked clean of any knives or anything remotely useful as a weapon, besides it was too far as well.

Jasla looked around for a moment before looking to Luke, “You… do you have any ideas for weapons? This isn’t going to be good but if we go out empty handed, we might as well just lie down. It would be faster that way.”

Luke considered for a minute before nodding, “Yea I think I can come up with something, can you find something for me to wear? I will freeze out there in minutes.”

Jasla nodded and stomped off in the direction of the makeshift furniture shelters. Luke looked around a moment and started gathering supplies. Most of an hour later Jasla returned and stopped dead staring at Luke seated amongst a small mountain of junk.

“What is all this?”

“Hmmm mostly garbage, hand me that box of spoons"

Jasla complied automatically, staring awestruck at Luke’s handiwork. The feeling of pride Luke felt at Jasla's awe was surprising. Jasla was smart for a tribal, but they were still just a tribal. Jury rigging a couple flails from braided power cords, crumpled filing cabinet pieces and sharpened kitchen utensils for added nastiness wasn’t THAT impressive. But the small grin and nod of approval from Jasla was even better for his ego than graduating top of his class.

They were still jury rigged junk flails and would fall apart far too easily, so Luke had made twice as many as he could reasonably carry, and made sure to bring extra cords wrapped around himself for repairs. Jasla had somehow scrounged up an entire set of, mostly not rotting, hides to cover Luke in. They both had extra layers that they could shrug off in a hurry when they managed to find something to hunt. There was no telling if this would be enough but they couldn’t carry any more so it would have to be.

As the hour deadline approached the same Council member that fetched them for the hearing approached .

“You two ready?”

“Does it matter?” Jasla snapped

“Not really, come on, I need to make sure you make it out.”

With that sorry excuse, they were off. Even as prepared as they could be Luke couldn’t help but feel they were forgetting something. He didn’t have long to consider though as Jasla's former home was quite near the exit they called the Ice Door. As they approached Luke could hear the wind howling across the open hatch. That seemed odd, yes they were leaving but it was silly to leave the hatch open and invite the cold. They had what amounted to endless electricity, which gave their space heaters and central heating plenty to work with, but it still seemed strange.

When they neared the ladder for the emergency exit Luke saw that the hatch wasn’t open… the wind was so loud it could be heard through the closed hatch and a decent ways down the hall.

“Alright you two, go on, and remember, come back with food, or don’t come back at all.” The Council hunter poked Luke in the back with the butt of his spear, pushing him to the ladder behind Jasla.

As he neared he could hear as Jasla muttered under their breath, “Shit… that’s a storm, they don’t mean for us to survive…”

Despite knowing it was their death, Jasla took a deep breath, pulled the hides closer, and climbed the ladder. When the hatch opened the howl of wind became a roar. There was no light, the hatch seemed to be the maw of some angry beast. Some nightmare beast screaming at him, daring him to cross into it’s frozen void of a mouth where no one would hear from or see him again.

Jasla didn’t look back as they climbed through the beasts jaws and disappeared. Luke did look back only to see a few more hunters and a small group of scavengers looking back at him. He couldn’t tell if the beast's maw or the Tribe’s eyes were colder. He chose the beast, at least an ally waited there.

As he climbed onto the snow and closed the hatch behind him, he decided that yes, this was definitely colder. It was so dark he couldn’t see anything once the hatch closed. When a hand reached out and grabbed him from the dark he was grateful for the wind hiding his high pitched squeal.

Jasla pressed their face close and screamed, Luke could still only just hear their words, “Come, hold onto me, I will lead the way, if we stay here we will just freeze, there are some small caves this way, we can hide from the storm"

Luke tried to nod his agreement, but Jasla was already turning and hurrying into the darkness. They traveled for a few years, or maybe an hour, it was the same thing when Luke couldn’t even see his hand tightly gripped onto the frozen hides in front of him. His fingers were sure to frostbite soon, but there was no way he would let go of the only lifeline he had. At one point it occurred to him that he could use the extra power cords he brought as a tether and tie themselves together, but he couldn’t express that idea to Jasla who trudged ever onward.

At some point Luke ran directly into Jasla who had stopped.

“Hey why did you…”

That was when he realized he could hear himself without screaming. The wind had mostly died out and the snow had stopped, it was still dark as the void, and colder but he could hear.

“This… what is this?” Jasla sounded somehow excited and terrified at the same time

“What?”

Luke definitely had frostbite in his hand, badly and was only thankful that he couldn’t feel it yet as he pried his fingers open and moved around along side Jasla.

“What is what? Where are we?”

“We made it to the caves, it’s a cliff side with dozens of caves in it, there’s sometimes a critter or two sleeping in these caves, especially when the weather is bad" Jasla paused before continuing in an increasingly more manic tone, “We don’t come in here, there’s no reason, the caves are all too shallow for anything to hide. We must have drifted off from the normal area we check, I’ve never heard of this before, do you see this?”

“I cant see anything, wait can YOU see? How can you see?”

“How can you not see, this is it, we can survive with this, help me break it free, its only an inch or two under the surface"

Luke had no idea what Jasla was on about and couldn’t use his hand anyway so just sat back bracing himself for the pain when the hand started to thaw. He hadnt seen it personally but had heard about what frostbite could do, and about how it worked. He knew he was in for the worst pain he had ever experienced and just hoped it wouldn’t ruin the hand permanently or somehow get infected or something that he clearly couldn’t handle right now. As he worried and pondered and worried some more, Jasla had taken hold of one of the flail heads and started smashing some ice. At least that’s what the sounds implied. It took a good while for Jasla to start making grunting noises for a time and then switch back to smashing, this time with a distinctly more metallic sound, then back to grunting. Luke tuned out the noises as the pain had started.

Defrosting a frostbitten body part HURT. Luke held the hand close to his chest, curled up around it, and bit down into the hides covering his head. The hand was very clearly on fire, it was frozen but also on fire. It had to be defrosted but the pain was so bad he just wanted to plunge it into the snow and numb it again. Drops of acid burned through his skin and into the bone for a time until Luke realized it was his tears and they were just so much warmer than his hand that it felt like they were burning him.

Skill unlocked: cold resistance

Cold resistance: level 1

Skill unlocked: Tissue regeneration

Tissue regeneration: level 1

Luke was blind and deaf to the world missing the notifications entirely, as well as the light from the newly opened hatch, and Jasla calling out to him. Eventually Jasla threw him over their shoulder and carried Luke down into the Maintenance sector of the research base. A sector of their own.