Banished Worlds (5 page)

“I hope full, but I haven’t had a chance to take a look yet. When everyone has settled down we can check out the bundle and see.”

Roberts nodded. She tried not to yawn, but that never works.

“Get some sleep. I slept a lot on the trip here. I want you awake and alert tomorrow for this demo team business.”

“There must be a high turnover rate, and not many, or any people willing to join up.” She twisted toward me and shifted her left shoulder down for more comfort.

Her position forced me to notice how warm and comfortable her body was when pressed up against mine. I tried not to think about her. It was a mission, and here we could end up dead, really fast.

“When the workforce here is willing to do with less food to stay out of this demo team job, it can’t be good.” I studied the people as much as I studied the surroundings. All these people looked worn-out, and some of them did not look old enough to be worn-out.

I knew from Lark that prisoners on the planets still had children. However, I did not see any little ones here which meant either few survived to adulthood, or they were kept somewhere else. I did not want to think about that. In the network, child labor did not exist, but that would not be the case here. Probably, everyone started working as soon as they could put one foot in front of the other. I hated that idea, so I studied the building instead.

It was a converted warehouse that had been divided into areas. Yellow section was on one wall. Red section was in the middle, being by far, the largest section from what little I had seen. It was a warehouse, but did not have a high ceiling. The early workers, in the construction of Tirus becoming a prison planet, had modified the building to have more area in the upper levels. There was a lot more space on the second level than the occupied area Big Chin lived in. There was storage area up there which made me want to explore it.

“I wonder if there is another team in all that space upstairs, or if it houses supplies?”

“The best goods for the best people, little rewards for Big Chin’s special friends,” Roberts replied. “I was wondering about that too.”

I eased my grip, from holding her close, but she did not move away. She closed her eyes and settled in against me to go to sleep. I watched our demo team members and tried not to think about the beautiful woman cuddled up next to me.

CHAPTER 4

“Get down!” Roberts yelled at our line of demo team members.

The plow bar of the hydraulic arm swung out wide and would come racing back in our direction. This arm, in one sweep, could smash through most walls of old buildings and turn them into rubble. The buildings were full of team members trying to search them in advance of the hydraulic bar leveling them.

Our job, if you call it a job, was to run through the building being ripped down and make sure no good, serviceable equipment or supplies had been over looked, and if so, get said stuff out before it came down. They did not give a team much time to look either. And pickings were slim at best. The teams would run in, grab anything they could, and race out as the plow smashed away.

As soon as it passed over, you got to run back into the rubble and search for more. The entire time, the plow bar and plow body frame that it was attached to was moving and advancing forward. On each side of the frame, stood a spotter that kept an eye on the team and the movement of the bar arm. Their job was to watch out for them and to yell warnings about the bar’s approach.

I heard Roberts yell and had gotten accustomed to a three second count before it passed over my position.

On my side of the bar were a handful of team members. I had only learned one name and that was Bikes. He was a big man, taller than I was, but unlike the rest of the team, Bikes had a grin on his face from ear to ear all of the time.

Roberts yelled a second warning, and I dropped to the ground as the bar moved overhead. It was close to ground level, and the operator was not giving our team any room for error. I was tired and did not want to get up, but the plow body would roll forward whether I was there, or not, so I moved forward still low to the ground.

We had one break for lunch; a sandwich of thick yellow bread with water and that had been hours earlier.

“Bikes, move!” yelled the spotter from the far side of the frame.

“It’s good, it’s good!” Bikes yelled back to the spotter. He was pulling on something I could not see, but whatever it was it seemed more important to him than the spotters warning.

“Move, you idiot!” Jenkins yelled from the body frame next to the other spotter.

I watched as Bikes strained to pull his prize free of the rubble. He did not watch the bar at all. I saw the shadow of the bar approaching from behind me and heading his direction. I pushed up, ran for Bikes, and grabbed the handle of the large metal case he was trying to salvage and pulled as he did. The metal case did not move at first, and I knew we only had seconds before the bar cut through us. I bent my knees and strained. Bikes did the same and the case inched its way out of the debris. We pulled harder and it gave all at once. As soon as it was free, we tossed the case away from the plow bar area and both dove for cover.

I felt the rush of air as the bar passed over us and turned to look for Bikes, but he was already up and chasing after the next prize and laughing as he ran. The case would get collected by the follow up crew, and Bikes moved forward.

The rest of the day was the same except for having to help Bikes. Before dark, the plow body stopped its forward run and stopped the arm. Jenkins ordered the equipment back to the compound. As it returned home, Jenkins and the spotters jumped down. Like the rest of us, they started loading the broken debris into hand carts for transit back to the compound.

Roberts walked up and touched my arm.

I looked over at her.

“What happen to watching my back?” she asked quietly. “You could have gotten hit when you went after that guy. You could have gotten me stuck here.”

“Hey, Danbeu!” the other spotter yelled over at me. “Thanks for helping Bikes. That idiot doesn’t know when to listen sometimes. Thanks.”

She moved forward, lit into Bikes about listening, and the whole time he just grinned and talked about the metal case being so good.

“I’ll be more careful, I promise,” I told Roberts. We both dumped arm loads of debris into a nearby cart. The guy pushing it looked to Roberts, then to me. “Good job today you two, welcome to the team.”

We started getting a few good remarks from our new team. Before the start of the day, the only ones who talked to us had been Jenkins, to tell us what to do. And Bikes, he seemed to talk to everyone, and sometimes even to people no one else saw.

Our compound laid on the southern rim of the dead city, the last real civilization before the government converted Tirus to a prison planet. Roberts walked on my left as Jenkins joined us on my right.

“Go ahead ask!” he said and tossed some small bits of brick and tile into the cart near us.

“Why knock down the city and live in the crowded compound?” Roberts crossed in front of me to face Jenkins.

“When the planet became a prison, the people lived in the city. Over the years they used up and stripped it of everything worthwhile. As supplies got shorter, people started banding together to share what they had as well as protect it from others. That’s how the compounds came into being.”

“And in the compounds it became management and workers, and the guards between them,” I said. “So why knock the dead city down?”

“Supplies. We have facilities to produce raw materials, convert this junk to useful junk. Other compounds produce food, but not raw materials. We trade, but not everyone wants to trade or trade evenly. The city was stripped years ago, so all that is left are the structures themselves, and each compound needs supplies, anything we can get. We have to expand the compound because we keep getting more people dropped in all of the time. We need room to expand food production just to feed the people we have.”

“Why not use the city for the people you have?” Roberts inquired. “Open up land for your food production, yes, but not keep everyone so bottled up.”

“Scavs, for one reason. Scavengers don’t help anybody, not even themselves most of the time. Other compounds would raid us and take what we have, including workers and women if they could. Even now raiding parties from other compounds attack our teams sometimes.” Jenkins patted the cart of bricks. “We will process this stuff and make stronger defenses.”

“What about Prisoner Union supply drops?” I asked. “Those should be calculated for an ever growing population. The prison system knows you get more prisoners and, of course, children from the people here.”

“Children right, like the prison system cares if we have kids.” Jenkins shook his head and loaded more bricks into the cart.

Roberts and I continued to load the cart, but we listened too.

Jenkins looked to Roberts. “Did anyone talk to you about children before they dropped you here?”

“It was kind of a last minute rush job to off load me,” she replied.

“Most women here have their ovaries removed before they are dropped. There is no chance they will ever leave and they don’t want to have kids. Of the kids born here, there are, of course, females and so more kids. It is a bad place to breed so there are not many kids and the ones that are here, well, they start working young. The females are good trade items for upper management.” Jenkins looked Roberts up and down, then looked to me. “You’ll get offers for your woman, all kind of offers.”

“Supply drops?” I asked again.

Jenkins grinned. “Drops are once in a blue moon. Mostly, they just drop more mouths to feed.” Jenkins looked over at another cart, one not so full. “You’re missing stuff, pay attention!” he yelled at the crew by the cart.

“We still have a couple hours of light left, if I’m right, and we need this stuff. Why did we stop the plow body early?” I asked.

“We’re the demo team. We’ll knock it down and grab a load on the way back to the compound, but it is red team’s job to collect the majority of the stuff and retrieve it. They’ll haul it back and work through the night to separate it. Everybody here works, or they don’t eat.” He went on to tell us that one of our responsibilities was to watch out for scavs as red team collects the debris field. We did this on our walk back through the fresh rubble.

We walked back to the compound, reached the entrance, and had company. Bender stood waiting at the gate with the guards.

Jenkins stopped walking, and so did we.

“So are they keepers, or do I dump them in the red section?” Bender was blunt and straight to the point. His eyes darted from Jenkins to me and back to Jenkins.

“They did good, real good. Danbeu saved Bikes’ life today.”

“He’s a plow bump that’s still walking. He needs to listen to his spotters!” Bender exclaimed with more anger than I would have expected toward Bikes. I wondered if it was because Bikes still lived, or because I had saved him.

“I say they stay here and on my demo team, but of course, it’s your decision. If you reassign them, I need two people by morning.” Jenkins expressed his opinion and walked away.

Bender looked to us, lingering on Roberts, then waved us toward Jenkins. “Follow your boss.”

I nodded and pushed Roberts ahead of me in the direction of Jenkins. We joined up with him in short order.

“I have a question?” Roberts inquired and pulled Jenkins arm to stop him.

“What’s the question?” Jenkins started walking and went for the food line. He got his bowl with bread, followed by Roberts and me.

“If supplies are so low and food is in such short supply how is it that Big Chin and his guards eat so well?” Roberts took a seat at the table and I sat down next to her.

“Big Chin is our manager. His private guards are also management,” Bender said, coming up to the table.

“So how do we get into management?” I joked and got a few laughs from the table, including Jenkins.

Bender walked to the wall where a hammer hung from a chain, picked up the hammer, and banged it on the support beam for the wall. The beam vibrated through the building and got everyone’s attention.

Jenkins was on his feet instantly. “What did you do that for?”

“He wants to move into management,” Bender replied.

“Danbeu was kidding. He doesn’t even know what you just did!” Jenkins yelled at Bender.

Bikes came running through the crowd. “Who’s fighting, who’s fighting?” he asked, reaching the wall with the hammer.

“You want to be in management, here’s your shot,” Bender said to me with a half twisted grin on his face.

“Bender, why?” Jenkins asked.

“He asked for it.”

Large sections of the different teams started parting. Through the division walked Big Chin and a handful of his bodyguards. He walked straight to the area near the hammer.

“Who challenged?” Chin yelled.

Bender pointed to me. “Danbeu here wants to move into management.” He glanced at Roberts, then back to Big Chin. “He likes your food better than ours.”

“Wants my food, wants my place, it sounds like a challenge.” Big Chin stared down at me. “You want my job, huh?”

I looked over at Bender, then to Roberts, and finally to Big Chin. “You don’t seem to be using it,” I said and stood up.

Roberts grabbed my arm and pulled me her direction. “What are you doing?”

“He can’t back out of the challenge now,” Jenkins said.

I leaned close to Roberts’ ear. “We can’t move around freely from this position. We have six days left and no information.”

“I have the Taser, you don’t,” she reminded me.

“I know, keep it for yourself if I fail. Stay close to Jenkins and Bikes.” I straightened up.

Roberts stood up, grabbed my head in both hands, and kissed me. “Kick his ass,” she said loud enough for Big Chin and everyone else to hear.

“It’s a fight to the death,” Bikes told us.

“Yeah, I figured that.” I motioned Big Chin to lead the way away from the tables.

The crowds all backed up until we had a clear circle around the two of us.

Big Chin had wider shoulders than me and with his jacket on he looked muscular. His blond hair was long, some of it falling into his eyes, and they were predator’s eyes; the eyes of an angry animal looking to vent on me.

We began by facing each other, circling, watching, and studying one another. I was tired from ten plus hours of running and dodging the hydraulic-driven bar. I was tired of the situation Nelson had put me in, of being bossed around since I had arrived. I knew this had to be fast, or I would be dead.

“Come on, you called this challenge, now fight me.” Big Chin slowly moved to his left.

I stepped right, then left and back, which closed the distance between us.

Chin back stepped hard, his arms raised to defend against an attack.

I backed up from him.

He smiled and approached fast, as did I towards him, and we exchanged a couple of blows that only landed on each other’s arms and shoulders.

The cheering section yelled for Chin to finish me. He responded and attacked again.

I got an opening on his approach and hit him square on his big chin. And might as well have punched the plow bar.

Big Chin hammered my right arm down, and hit me in the jaw. Before I could move, or react, he grabbed my jacket with his left hand and started throwing uppercuts to my midsection. He finished with a second hit to my jaw, and I hit the ground.