He'd definitely lost them.

Tailor had searched his pack, and along the route back through the tunnel. He even combed the silt in case they washed away in the current. However, there was no sign of the binoculars. His father was going to kill him when he found out.

The binoculars were brand new.  They featured a variable zoom and laser rangefinder.  His father had to import them from the other end of the Shelf. 

Tailor had begged to use them for days. His father had relented once (probably just to stop his son from pestering him), but the outside light barely penetrated now it was winter. He did have fun watching the laser beam cut through the water though.

"You're wasting the battery," his father said as he took the binoculars from him.

"But I didn't get to see anything," Tailor complained.

"When you get to the surface, then you will see."

"When will that be?"

"Too soon," his father sighed.

"When?"

"If the weather holds. Your Sanctionday."

The next two weeks passed with agonising slowness. The thought of finally leaving the water occupied his waking moments. 

 He tried to imagine what it would look like, and what sounds there would be.  What would he smell? 

He'd seen videos, of course, but actually experiencing it himself offered so many new sensations. Imagining them all dominated his thoughts. Even his little sister noticed his distraction.

"What are you doing?"

"Just checking the time."

"You've checked it every minute for the last hour."

He glared at her, then turned away in embarrassment as he realised the truth. He had become the most hated of the hated: a Clock-watcher. It was an old tradition amongst them. Of the vices, Clock-watcher ranked only behind The Hysterical and The Fussy.

His mother finally offered him the remedy. She made him assemble a Swarm Suit. 

Fully erected, a suit resembled a hiking tent, something that Tailor had once seen in a video about camping. However unlike tents, Swarm Suits can't be broken down and reassembled. Once their sealed, the only way to escape is to cut your way free. They were designed so the occupant could remain safe until the Rescue Teams reached them. 

 Practice suits, on the other hand, lacked the sealing glue.  They could be used repeatedly. That's what Tailor's mother made him do. 

 For hours she forced him assemble and disassemble the suit, and after each repetition she offered advice on how to improve. To become more efficient. Eventually she even timed him.

"You need to be ready," she said, after he complained.

"For what?"

"The surface. It's not like the water. You won't have time to make a mistake. If a swarm spots you, you have at most ten seconds."

"Just like a shark, then."

"A shark can't fit through a hole you can barely see. A Pest will sneak through it and tell the rest of the swarm."

That shocked him. Being enclosed, with a swarm surrounding him, was bad enough. Having the swarm on the inside of the suit, was terrifying. 

He didn't sleep well that night. However, the next morning he began to practice without any prompting from his mother.

Within days, he could assemble his suit in ten seconds. By the dawn of his Sanctionday, he had the time down to just over five seconds.

"Good," his father had said when he showed him. "You are ready."

It was that night, when they set out. The Pests were mostly dormant in the dark.

Tailor was excited as they entered the tunnel. It was just one of many, cut through the river's bank. This one led to a small lake from which they would ascend to the surface.

There were six of them in the small group. There was Tailor and his father, as well as his Uncle Hamish and his father's two closest friends: Pete, and Blake.

"Tai, you ready to kill some wasps?" his Uncle asked as they left the tunnel.

Tailor nodded, uncertainly.  He didn't know anything about killing Pests.

Uncle Hamish just laughed. 

"Personally, I'm hoping we don't see any," Pete said. His arms still bore the scars from his last journey to the surface.

Their journey to the surface wasn't just to initiate Tailor.  If anything,it was a distraction.  Their real goal was to raid the nearby buildings. 

Resources were stretched thin since humanity had fled into the water. Although the situation had improved in the last few years, there was still a need to scavenge. However, a generation of foraging had picked the nearer buildings clean, and they had to go further afield to find anything useful.

The first part of their journey was still hazy in his memory. He'd been surprised how cold the surface was. He could feel the chill through his wetsuit, especially on his exposed face. It was drizzling and the wind was blowing. Was winter always like this?

As the adults pulled the heavy equipment onto the bank, he gazed about taking in the surrounds. 

Thick scrub surrounded the lake. The bushes stretched from the edge of the river all the way to the buildings in the distance. 

As he got his bearings, Tailor became increasingly  disappointed.  He expected to smell flowers, eucalyptus oils, or at least the decaying corpses of unwary mammals or birds.   Yet there was only the familiar smell of the water, putrid and decaying.

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He noticed a few small, twisted trees nearby. Their trunks and branches were naked, the foliage picked clean by the Pests. 

 Then he saw a white glow through the dark clouds above.

"That's the Moon," Hamish told him, "Men walked on her once."

"They will again," Blake said, proudly.

"Not any time soon," his father said. "Come on. Let's go."

The journey to the buildings was arduous.  It consisted of sneaking through, and under, the foliage of tall bushes.  Their leaves were spiky and sharp, and while they never penetrated Tailor's wetsuit, they still cut across its outer covering leaving behind noticeable scratches and cuts. 

At one point, Tailor's right leg became entangled in a cluster of thorny leaves, and he couldn't move either  forward or back.  It took a concerted effort by Hamish to free him, with only moonlight to aid him. Artificial lights would attract The Swarms.

By the time they neared the buildings Tailor's nose was running and he had to wipe it on his right sleeve. He was glad his mother wasn't with them to witness it. She would have stuffed him full of the special medicines she brewed from seaweed. It tasted as awful as it sounded.

As they entered the compound, Tailor ran his bare hand across the surface of the outer wall. There was a barely visible net across it that came away under his touch. Below, the wall felt like hard sand.

"Don't!" Hamish said,."Spiders."

Tailor quickly retracted his hand and replaced his glove.

"I used to live over there when I was a kid," Blake announced. "My mum used to walk me to the shops to play on the swings."

"What's a swings?" Tailor had asked.

Before Blake could explain, his father had shushed both of them.

"Swarm," he whispered. He was using the binoculars to spy the way ahead.

In this way they managed to skirt around the Pests until they finally reached the relative safty of the buildings.

Even then, Tailor's father didn't relax. He kept glancing around and carefully checking under the piles of debris.

"Wardens," he explained to Tailor. "They like to hide."

When his father was satisfied, they moved cautiously through the rooms. Tailor was amazed at how big they were. Space in the dry zone was at a premium at home.  They could have fit their entire place in one of these rooms.

It was when they reached the far side of the buildings that his father offered him the binoculars. There was a window, open to the elements - the glass having been scavenged long ago. 

 Across the open field before them, Tailor could see the shapes of weather beaten ruins: more apartments. Behind those, he could see a taller building.

"What is that?" he asked.

"A hospital," his father said.

"More of a clinic, really," Blake corrected.

His father ignored the interjection. "That's where we are headed," he said. "To collect medicines. For Angie and the others."

His sister had a debilitative lung disease that kept her entrenched in the dry zone. She couldn't use an aqualung, and had to be ferried around in an enclosed cart.  Somedays she could barely breathe, and had to pause between words.

"What can you see?" His father asked, as he handed him the binoculars.

Tailor was amazed at the view. Even in the pale moonlight, he could see the hospital clearly. There was a sloping bank of windows in its side. The contents of the rooms behind them were just visible, as large angular shadows against the ashen walls.

"There are windows. I think there is glass still in them."

"Good."

"But they might be hard to extract without breaking them."

"Very good. That is why it is still there. What is that to the lower right?"

"A door?"

"How far away is it?"

Tailor triggered the rangefinder without having to look away.

"One hundred and thirteen metres," he reported.

"Excellent. That is how we will enter."

Tailor found the other adults grinning at him when he lowered the binoculars. Uncle Hamish laughed and rubbed the top of his head. 

 Then they set off.

However, they never made it to the hospital.

They were in open ground, moving across the field. It was dangerous, but Tailor's father had felt the risk was worth it. Time saved moving quickly would mean they could spend more combing the hospital. Tailor was in the middle of the group, beside his uncle. He still had the binoculars. He was looking through them instead of watching where he was going. Hamish had to grab his shoulder twice to guide him around obstacles.

"What's that?" Tailor said abruptly as he peered ahead.

Well-experienced to the dangers on the surface, the men all stopped as one.

"What?" his father asked.

"Near the wall. The ground is wobbling."

The swarm must have detected them at the same time. The ground appeared to launch itself into the air. The cloud of insects made a beeline straight for them.

Tailor figured that was when he dropped the binoculars. He reacted instinctively. He already had the Swarm Suit half-assembled before his father grabbed his shoulder and screamed at him, "No. Run!"

After that, it was just a mad dash for the water. He remembered sprinting, his father beside him. He glanced back to see Uncle Hamish, Pete and Blake throwing smoke bombs at the swarm. Then he lost sight of them as he entered the buildings.

The next thing he remembered was leaping into the lake. Once underwater, he turned back to watch the surface – fretting and willing the others to join him. It took forever, but they all made it, leaping into the water one after another. His father was the last one.

Back at the tunnel, they were congratulating him for his keen eyesight.

"If it weren't for you, Tai, we'd be stuck in our Suits awaiting rescue," his Uncle said.

"Or worse," his father said. He clapped his son on the shoulder and beamed. Tailor had never seen him so proud.

It was only back at home, during the third retelling of their tale to his family and friends that Tailor realised that he'd lost the binoculars. He must have left them behind with his half-erected Swarm Suit. He glanced at his father, who was sitting opposite him beside his mother. He seemed so happy. He didn't want to spoil that, so he excused himself from the celebrations.

Only Angie noticed. She followed him as he returned to the sleeping quarters.

"What's.... wrong?" she asked between breaths.

"What makes you think something is wrong?"

She gave him a steely look. It was pointless lying. She could read him like a book.

"I have to go back."

"What? Why?" she gasped.

"I have to retrieve dad's binoculars. I lost them."

"You can't!" she said breathlessly. Tailor waited for her continue, "It's almost... dawn."

"I need to return them before dad finds out. Cover for me."

He didn't give her a time to protest. He just gathered up his pack and left. Along the way, he retrieved a new Swarm Suit from the storage locker.