CHAPTER SEVEN
I was busy scrubbing my tatty t-shirt in the stream near my camp when I noticed the birds taking off from the trees. Sometimes they took off then circled and settled back in the same branches, but this time they didn’t return. Slowly I rose to my feet. I reacted to the animals instinctive behaviour now, not always understanding the source of the danger, but still recognising that there was one and exercising necessary caution.
A few moments later I heard a sound foreign to these woods.
Grabbing my clothes, I dashed back to my camp using one of the rabbit tracks. My eyes scanned the skies above, I couldn’t see anything yet, but the sound was growing louder.
I made it to the tree and dove inside the hole in a single, practised movement. Gazing carefully out through the snow covered tree roots I spotted the police microdrone, just at the moment it appeared to have spotted me. It moved in for a closer look, though was hindered by the trees, quite probably the only thing saving me from being shot to shreds at that moment. The robot couldn’t fly in close enough, the trees were tall and quite dense even without their leaves. The drone wouldn’t be able to get in here.
I retreated further into the hollow, which I had progressively made deeper over the passing months. My mind was racing. How on earth had they found me here? What had led them here after all this time? I could have cried, but I was too shocked.
In the event of them coming here, my plan had been to hunker down in my burrow and wait it out, though I never really imagined they would get this close. Now they were right here, virtually on my doorstep. It wouldn’t be long before the drone revealed to Glasses - who I assumed would be here, along for the hunt - my location.
I had no intention of dying here today.
The drone hovered a few moments before it backed off, but was coming around again. While it’s back was turned I leapt out of the burrow to try and cover any visible signs that I was here in the clearing. I carefully covered and camouflaged my fire pit with twigs and frozen ground foliage. Anything I had used as a tool, sticks I’d chiselled into sharp cutting tools and so on, all of it had to be concealed. I threw these into the hollow, before jumping back inside myself.
The days here had been long enough that I’d had time to construct a false cover, made using roots from my tree, bound with an improved version of my plant based twine. It leaned just outside the hole and thankfully it was still covered in snow and it looked quite natural and undisturbed. Now I gently tugged it, bringing it up and wedging it over the entrance hole, trying not to dislodge the snow which would provide me with perfect coverage.
Now all I could do was wait.
Or rather, think and wait. Again I wondered how they came to be here? I hadn’t left these woods since I arrived six months earlier, not once.
I heard shouting. Tilting my head like an animal to hone in on the sound - it seemed to come from the wider part of the river - they were close by. The voices were excited, I realised then that they must have found something. I racked my brain, and then remembered the failed fishing net, I had left it there beside the river when I’d gotten cross. Stupid idiot! It was obviously not something made by nature. If they hadn’t been sure of it before, I had helped them confirm my presence here.
Several hours passed, the drone must have been grounded for recharging, but the voices drew nearer still. I remained still, quiet. I had plenty of water and food, I could stay in here for a long time, and had every intention of doing so. I would wait here until I knew they were gone.
But they evidently weren’t going anywhere either. The voices grew louder. Now one of them sounded as though he was just behind me, standing at the rear of my tree. He wouldn’t be able to see the entrance from there, and I quietly hoped he wouldn’t walk around to this side. I willed him to keep walking on by.
I didn’t dare to move forward to look outside through the tiny gaps in the snowy root cover, I couldn’t risk making a sound, breathing too loudly, anything that might alert them to my hiding place. The first man had been joined by a second, the tone of his voice suggested to me that he was in charge. The first man stayed where he was, it was the second who continued walking around the clearing, from behind the tree toward the front, closer to me.
Clasping a hand over my own mouth in case involuntary sounds came out, I started to shake, at first with fear, but this soon evolved into anger. To be discovered here, after all that I had been through, they had no right to kill me. I was not a murderer, I was not a terrorist. I was fighting a technological war against the tyranny on behalf of oppressed people. That did not make me a bad man. I did not deserve this.
I looked down and realised that I had unknowingly pick up one of my sharpened sticks, grasping it tightly in my hand. If they found me, I thought, I would not let them kill me easily, I would retaliate.
Two hours later I was just short of willing them to yank back the cover so I could lunge at them with my weapon. I fully intended to take them out first now, I was ready for them. I had been ripped from my normal life and dropped into this one - surviving for six months in harsh, deprived conditions with no tools, no expertise, no nothing - and they were not going to take what remained of this life, that I had fought so hard to preserve, from me now.
Darkness began to fall on the woodland, Ringlands, my home. I knew they were still out there. I guessed it must be around five-thirty now. Most people would have left work for the day, but not these guys.
I reached inside my rucksack, looking for some food, and the back of my hand felt something hard in a side pocket that I couldn’t immediately identify. Careful to make no sound, I opened it up and inside found a mobile phone.