Survivors

Seven years later.

Luke scanned the street, patiently and systematically. It was something he’d done hundreds of times before. He carefully took in the three Alien Scouts at the crossroads about a hundred yards away and the big Transporter (that Luke called a TT) that was just poking out from round the corner. He and made a mental note of their positions. “Nothing to particularly worry about there” he thought.

Just in case you don’t know an Alien Scout looked a bit like a dustbin. True it would have been a very fancy upside down shiny black dustbin with three patches of flashing sensors, a couple of antenna, a mechanical grab and one very ominous looking laser tube… but still... a bit like a dustbin. In truth the one thing that made it look even less dustbin like than anything else was the blue light that glowed all round it’s base. The blue light seemed to allow the Scout to hover about twelve inches off the ground... if anything can be said to hover on light! Lots of the Aliens had this blue light, floaty, force field thing. It seemed to help them zoom around pretty quietly and effectively no matter what sort of ground they were passing over, and in whatever direction they wanted; to go up or down, left or right, backwards or forwards.

The TT was a much bigger beast. TT’s didn’t hover they had wheels, big wide chunky wheels. A TT had six wheels and was about as big as a mid-sized lorry. It was pretty heavily armed with three lasers, an array of missiles and a spring loaded catch net. What the TT had in weaponry it lacked in sophistication, intelligence and processing functions. If it had been an animal it would have been a big angry rhino, that had undergone complicated brain surgery, performed by an unqualified vet, using a rusty spade, in the dark and blindfolded. TT’s were mainly used to transport the other more useful Alien’s around. It was in all honesty the bluntest of all blunt instruments.

The surviving humans had given the different Alien types names depending on what they did; Scouts scouted, Transporters transported, Hunter Killers... well you get the idea! Some people believed that what could be seen (the dustbin exterior of a Scout for example) wasn’t really the Alien. They thought that the actual Alien was somewhere inside the outer shell, and was possibly fused in some way with the external machinery. These people only “thought” that because even though the Aliens had ruled the earth for seven years, hardly anyone could honestly say they had ever seen inside one. Most people who got too close to the Aliens ended up too dead to report back anything useful that they had seen. There were other people who believed that the Aliens were just machines, little more than very complicated computers, with no heart and no soul. Yet more people believed the Aliens were the ancient masters of the earth who had built the pyramids, Matchu Pitchu, Stonehenge and the like, but nobody really listened to them very much. The real truth was that absolutely nobody knew for sure.

Anyway… back on the street… Luke watched the Scouts and the TT’s for a couple of minutes more, thoughtfully counting their scanning patterns in elephants. By carefully counting the speed at which the Scouts antenna rotated it was possible to pickout the gaps in their scanning patterns. These gaps created little blind spots that could easily be taken advantage of if you knew what you were doing. Scout’s and TT’s were really common and pretty easy to dodge even if you only knew the most basic of avoidance techniques. All you had to was concentrate and keep a clear head… and make your elephant counting steady.

Deciding he’d watched for long enough Luke slipped out of the shadows and walked slowly down the street. He passed boarded up and broken windows and heavily shuttered doors, always keeping close in to the wall. He made sure he kept his head down and shuffled his feet in a dejected pathetic sort of way. As he passed one non-descript part of the wall he casually reached out and tapped twice and then scraped it with his finger tips. Without looking back or breaking his stride he carried on down the street for a few yards then quickly turned down a dark narrow alleyway between two high concrete block buildings.

A few seconds later two slightly younger but equally scruffy children, Joe and Holly, magically appeared on the street. Like all the magic that you would have seen it was just a trick! No one believed in magic anymore, and nobody really bothered trying to learn magic tricks. There just didn’t seem to be time or room for something that pointless in a world as hard to live in as this one was now. Fun was in very short supply and magic tricks seemed to require an awful lot of effort for not that much reward, a bit like juggling!

This is how this particular trick was performed... the tap and the scrape from Luke on the wall told Holly and Joe to count five elephants. For Luke, Joe and Holly elephants were the standard unit of time when dealing with the Aliens! Joe and Holly knew that once they had counted their five elephants all they had to do was pop through the hole in the wall, onto the street. The hole was perfectly concealed by an old Alien propaganda poster that encouraged the citizens of earth to be “behave good and respect their Alien masters” … the Aliens never had bothered to learn English terribly well. Behind the poster Holly and Joe waited and counted, when they got to the fifth elephant they flicked the poster up and slipped out. Then “Hey Presto” and “Abracadabra” we have two children where before there was only an empty street.

They knew it was important to count slowly and evenly and not to rush the elephants just because they were excited. They trusted that Luke would have timed exactly the way the Scouts were scanning the street. By counting to five from his tap they could be sure that as they popped onto the street it would be right smack bang in the middle of a nice big blind spot in the scanning pattern. They were therefore perfectly safe to emerge from their hiding place and be absolutely sure of not raising any suspicion. It was one of the oddities of the lower level Aliens, that if they sensed you coming through an apparently solid wall they would spot you and there was bound to be trouble. However if you suddenly appeared on a street you hadn’t been on before during one of their blind spots they just seemed to accept that you were there. Dumb Aliens!

It was surprising just how confident Joe and Holly felt in coming through that hole in the wall. After all they couldn’t see a thing and if they got it wrong it could all end in a laser induced instant child barbeque. All they had to go on was a couple of taps and a scrape to let them know that they were good to go after five elephants. You could say what you liked about Luke… and they often did… but he was the all-time, record breaking, stellar star of counting elephants.

Now safely out in the street they moved down the road using the same sort of eyes down shuffling style of walking that Luke had so ably demonstrated. It was the way everyone walked now. The vast majority of the remaining population had been so remorselessly ground down by the Aliens in the last seven years that most people had no spirit or fight left in them at all . All the fight had been brutally and systematically beaten out of them. Forced labour, terrible working conditions and only just enough food to keep the fittest and healthiest alive had gradually subdued almost everyone into an acceptance of Alien slavery.

Notice in that last sentence I said “almost everyone” not “all people” had been subdued into the acceptance of slavery. A few, a very few had escaped the forced labour camps and the “Approved Areas” of the cities into what was now known as the Wastelands. The Wastelands were the areas of the cities, suburbs and countryside that were no longer actively occupied and therefore no longer cared for. It had been amazing how quickly the Wastelands had turned from neat rows of suburban housing into wild and desolate places. Weeds, brambles, grass, mould and just about every type of slime and creeping growing things had invaded the houses, schools, offices and factories within a matter of months of being abandoned.

The good news was that all this unkempt growth made the Wastelands a very good place to hide. Small groups of survivors lived wild in these ruins. Fortunately for the survivors there was a lot of Wasteland to hide in; unfortunately there was a lot of Wasteland to hide in because there were a lot fewer people left alive to occupy it. Millions had died in the war that followed the arrival of the Aliens. Actually it wasn’t much of a war; it was more of a prolonged massacre. Millions more died as diseases spread rampantly because of the collapse of most of the infrastructure that had kept large parts of the world ticking over in relevant comfort for most people. No fresh water, no sanitation, no healthcare, nothing … nobody even came to collect the bins! Then even more millions had died under the brutal conditions enforced by the Aliens.

So the Wastelands were big, very big! This was bad news for all the people who had died, but good news for the Survivors. “Survivors” was the name the people who lived in the Wastelands had given themselves. Notice they didn’t call themselves “freedom fighters”, “guerrillas”, “The resistance”, or anything that indicated in any way that they saw their role as anything more than to stay alive. It seemed that as long as they didn’t cause too much trouble, didn’t draw too much attention to themselves and the Aliens had enough slave labourers for the camps they could be relatively sure that they wouldn’t be actively hunted. This was on the whole a good thing.

The Wastelands surrounded what was known as the Approved Areas. These were the still officially occupied parts of the cities. They were under strict Alien control but in the Approved Areas people were allowed limited freedoms. They could move around unattended, though there was a strict curfew. They could meet together unsupervised, as long as it wasn’t in groups of more than six. They could even shut their doors for a little privacy, as long as they never locked them. Compared to the camps it was bliss. People in the Approved Areas did their work, tried not to cause any trouble and hoped the Alien catch squads didn’t look their way when they needed more workers for the camps. Avoid trouble at all costs was the rule that most people now lived by. Keep quiet, keep your head down and don’t stand out in anyway and you might be all right.

Luke, Joe and Holly though were not “most people”. They loved a little bit of trouble every now and then. At this precise moment they were playing with what was potentially triple trouble. Trouble one was that as they were part of a small band of survivors who lived in a nearby patch of wasteland they were therefore officially fugitives and could be shot on site. Trouble two was that they were currently in an Approved Area without clearance or the right paperwork which meant that they could be shot on site. Trouble three, they were about to try and break into an Alien controlled communal food store to steal provisions.., for which… yep you’ve guessed it! So if they were caught, “trouble” would be definitely far too small a word for the world of dung they would find themselves in.

Again back in the street Joe and Holly dived into the alley to join Luke. He was stood about ten yards down in front of a large rusty looking metal door. He nodded at them and asked them somewhat snappily “Were you seen?”

“Of course not” said Joe “I never get seen, I’m like a ghost... whooo”.

“That’s no reason for you not to be careful and take sensible precautions” hissed Luke. “One slip and we could all end up in a camp, or worse”.

“For god’s sake I know that, do you think I don’t know that” moaned Joe.

“The way you behave sometimes I don’t know what you know. Sometimes it’s like you know nothing” snapped Luke.

“ Jeez can’t you ever drop the big brother I KNOW SO MUCH MORE THAN YOU ACT, just for one day!?” said Joe squaring up to Luke.

“And can’t you two ever go a day without arguing” said Holly stepping between them. “Can we please try and remember why we are here”. She paused, waiting for them to look suitably shamed, which they entirely failed to do. “Oh for god’s sake” she said exasperated “Joe have you got it?”

Joe grinned, all the tension suddenly gone from his face.

“Have I got it she asks, of course I’ve got it” he said as he produced a small oblong of flat plastic from his top pocket. “And before you ask big bruv” he went on holding the flat of his hand up to Luke’s face. “No Darius didn’t feel a thing, and probably thinks it’s still safely tucked away in his jacket pocket”

Luke frowned, he was so fed up with Joe’s constant bragging. “All right then smartarse you think you’re so clever don’t you. Well are you just going to stand there wasting space and breath or are you going to get that door open... I’m starving” he said brusquely.

“Okay” said Joe grinning knowing he’d got under Luke’s skin again. “Here we go”. He paused, and a grin spread across his face. “ Holly my little lovely can you keep lookout in the street while the master is at work”.

Holly opened her mouth to reply, but then thought better of it and with an exaggerated sigh she crept back down to the end of the alley to keep watch.

On the wall next to the door was a small metal box. Joe carefully and cautiously felt along the edge of the box where it was joined to the wall. He traced his finger gently along both sides, then the top, then the bottom. The smile on his face gradually turned into a frown. He stepped back, took a deep breath, shook his hands and then moved back to the box. He closed his eyes and let his fingers feel along the edges again. This time he was really extra specially gentle and very , very careful, feeling every single contour and bump on the box and wall. As he traced his finger down the side nearest the door he suddenly stopped and smiled.

“Got it” he whispered. He had found what he was looking for. It was a tiny gap between the wall and the box, it was barely a few millimetres thick but this would be their way in. With extreme care Joe took the plastic oblong and gently eased it into the gap. He was hardly breathing as he slid the card slowly but steadily forward. When about half the card was inside the box it caught on something and stopped moving. Joe gave one last little shove and waited. For a few seconds nothing happened, and then from somewhere on the other side of the door there was a dull click.

“We’re in” said Joe now grinning from ear to ear. “Let’s eat!”