2 AL: IRENE

The big group walked for a couple hours. At first Irene thought they were randomly taking right and left turns. Eventually she realized the group leaders carried rough maps drawn onto sheets of plastic. She wondered why she didn’t ask Agatha for something similar. Agatha told Irene she mapped out the locations of many inscriptions. That same data could have given Irene a hint of where to go. Irene started wondering if she could get a copy of the map. She would need it for the trip back.

When they reached a section of corridor that was extra wide, a call came from the leaders saying that they would stay there for the rest of the night. One of the big work lights was brought back to the rear of the group. It was left on, illuminating the corridor behind them. Irene turned off her own small light. She took off her backpack and settled down with her back against the wall. She laid her broom handle down parallel to her legs and grasped her backpack like it was a shield.

The floor she was sitting on seemed fairly clean. In the center of the area there were a couple piles of rotten fabric and rusted metal that might once have been furniture. Most people just settled to the ground where they stopped walking. A few were moving around reforming sub groups. A person stood on watch at each of the work lights.

The work lights were illuminating the approaches to their little camp but the camp itself was in shadow. Irene was as unsure of her companions as she was of the ruins beyond. The terrifying thought that they might leave her behind if they realized she was not one of them kept Irene on edge. She watched the people around her settle down. The earlier excitement faded as fatigue overtook everyone. The group quieted as people fell asleep.

Irene woke up with a snort. She couldn’t believe she actually fell asleep. Everything was quiet. The work lights were still on. She could see someone leaning against the wall near the closest one. She got to her feet as quietly as she could, using her broomstick. She swung her backpack onto one shoulder. She didn’t want to become separated from her belongings since she was uncertain of her companions. She strongly needed to use the restroom. She didn’t know where to go. All her upbring said she couldn’t just piss on the floor in front of people.

She walked carefully around the sleeping bodies to the nearest work light. When she got close to the man leaning against the wall on watch she could see he was dozing. She gently grasped his arm to wake him. He woke with a start, jerking his arm from her touch.

Irene asked him in a soft voice if there was someplace she should go to relieve herself. The guard told her that they didn’t define a latrine but that she should not go far and stay close to the light. She went down the hall to the first cross passage. The side passage was illuminated by reflected light enough for Irene to see. She juggled her backpack and broomstick around until she was finally able to squat down and relieve her aching bladder.

She leaned against the wall while securing her belt in place and felt its rough texture. She clicked on her flashlight and took a closer look. The wall was covered by an inscription. It was composed of the hash marks, crosses and single dots. She made sure she illuminated each section of the work so the camera would record it in its entirety. She studied it trying to find the pattern within. She was just beginning to think she could pick out a horizontal line when she heard a scream.

Grabbing her belongings she rushed back to the camp. A woman in the center was clutching her arm and staring at the ground in front of her. People were rushing around and Irene couldn’t see what the woman was looking at. She shifted around trying to get a view.

“It’s dead,” a man said. He rose up with a small animal in his grasp. The animal might be small but the claws on it were impressive. It was not the animal Irene saw on her last trip. This one was smaller. She thought it must be a rat. Which made her wonder what she fought before.

The rat looked like it took a solid blow and Irene realized this was the same man she spoke to earlier with the ax. What was his name? Irene thought. Jake, yes that was it.

“Have someone look at that arm,” Jake said to the injured woman. The rest of the woman’s subgroup seem to come out of their daze. They comforted her and gently pulled her hand away from the injury. There was a slash all the way through the fabric of her shirt but only a small amount of blood was showing. The injury was mild. If Irene did it at work the medical department would have cleaned it, sprayed liquid bandage on it and sent her home.

The thought made Irene realize she didn’t bring any medical supplies. Feeling incredibly stupid she wanted to just turn around and go back to the ship. But that would mean a two hour journey alone in the dark with just her small flashlight on a path she didn’t have a map of. She shivered and decided to try and stay close to Jake.

Jake carried the dead animal over to his partner Sophia. In Irene’s attempt to get a better view, she ended up close to Sophia. Now Irene closed the gap with a couple quiet steps.

“I don’t understand how it got so far into the camp,” Sophia said to Jake. She took the dead animal from Jake and inspected it. Jake made a noncommittal sound, not understanding it himself.

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“Look for an air vent,” Irene offered. “The rats travel the ducts. We are lucky it was only one, they can show up in numbers.”

“How do you know?” Jake asked Irene.

“My brother was on the medical team that went in after the first large scale rat attack,” Irene responded. She wasn’t certain why she didn’t mention her mother. She supposed it was because her mother would chew her out for not having a medkit. “What do you plan to do with it?” Irene asked. “They are supposed to taste like chicken.”

“Is that a joke?” Jake asked.

“Maybe,” Irene responded, “but if it is, I am just repeating it.” She could remember Darien saying that once. She didn’t know if he was serious or not when he said it.

“Did you get a payout?” Sophia asked Jake.

“No,” Jake responded. Irene didn’t know what they were talking about. She decided to keep quiet about her ignorance. She wanted them to think she was an asset and not a liability.

The camp didn’t settle back down. Instead the restlessness seemed to be catching. A voice called out from the far end of the camp that we were going to move forward to the first water source. People gathered up their belongings. Irene checked the closures on her bag and sipped the water that was hanging from her belt. That water bottle was about empty. She wasn’t certain when she drank it all. There were still two more in her backpack. She decided to hold on to them for emergencies.

The water source was less than a half hour walk away. The area was a maze of broken tiles and collapsed beams. Even the work lights could not illuminate all the nooks and crannies. Irene could hear the scratch of claws over tiles coming from the darkness. The way the group bunched up, she knew she wasn’t the only one that heard them. Irene was grateful for her flashlight illuminating the ground at her feet. Some of the broken floor tiles revealed open drops into the floor below them.

A hole opened up in the ceiling over their heads. Over the years dust and plant litter fell through the opening and accumulated in crevices and on ledges. Plants, grasses, vines and small herbs Irene didn’t recognize were growing from the resulting soil. The hole in the ceiling traversed several stories before opening up to the sky. Irene couldn’t actually see the sky, because of the angle she was forced to look up the shaft due to the pile of debris at the center of it. The weak false light of early morning illuminated the upper sections she could see. It did not reach them this deep in the structure. A constant stream of water was flowing down a piece of angled steel before dropping onto a broken section of flooring. The water pooled there before overflowing down into a hole to the level below.

Looking over the arrangement Irene quickly spotted several spots that did not look right. The engineer in her screamed that there was no way the structure components accidentally fell into that arrangement. Still it was very well done. Irene wondered if she would have noticed the inconsistencies if Agatha didn’t point out earlier ones.

When it was her turn Irene held out her bottle and filled it from the falling stream. She knew she was probably contaminating herself with ‘nanobots’ but she couldn’t see any other way. She consoled herself with the knowledge that no one died of the ‘nanobots’. At least none that she knew of.

She sipped the water. It was cold and clear. She tasted no hint of soil or rust. It tasted fresh, a flavor that was usually produced by adding minerals. As Irene waited she studied the plants surrounding the water. She wished she brought a portable testing unit. The official teams were equipped with them. They found many edible plants beyond the apples. Irene didn’t know if the data from their many tests made it back to the colony, or just the high level report.

“Are any of these plants edible?” Irene asked Sophia.

“I think that one is,” Sophia said, pointing to a plant that appeared to have a single leaf that the stem grew through.

“What?” Jake asked. He was turned slightly away and missed Irene’s question.

“I said that plant is edible,” Sophia responded.

“Yes,” Jake agreed. “And I think that one too,” he said pointing at one growing the edge of the pool of water. Its leaves were arrow shaped.

“No, wasn't the one that looked like an arrow poisonous?” Sophia replied.

“Not the ones that grow in water,” someone beyond Jake said. The discussion spread as more people offered their opinion. Irene listened carefully. Many of the opinions were contradictory. Finally the same man who told them yesterday that they were not waiting for stragglers stepped forward to give a very professional sounding lecture on the topic. The frustration that leaked into his words made Irene think he gave this speech many times. Irene tried to commit his advice to memory. He pointed out the edible plants in and around the water source. The plants both Sophia and Jake picked made the cut.

Irene was starting to think these groups knew more than the official teams. She wondered how they got that information. It gave her hope that she was wrong about no one ever coming out again. The lecture covered about twenty plants. They were split into edible plants that grew in the water and on the ground of the greenspace. There were also five that were especially poisonous and to be avoided at all costs. One of those grew on the forest floor and had arrow shaped leaves.

After the lecture the last few people filled their water bottles and the group was ready to move forward. Irene used her position near the rear of the group to top off her bottle as she passed. She also picked a stem of the single leaf plant and ate it. Its flavor was very mild. She read somewhere that the way to test new foods was to eat a small amount then wait and see if it caused a reaction.

The only reaction that Irene noticed was that it awakened her hunger. She juggled around her pack and fished one of her survival bars out of the bottom. She chewed on the hard bar as they walked. It tasted like oily cardboard. She could only get herself to eat about a third of the bar before she slipped the rest into a pocket for later.