Boneyards & Badlands: The Complete FTW Series Read online

  BONEYARDS

  &

  BADLANDS

  The Complete F T W Series

  by Morgan Hobbes

  Copyright © 2016-2017 by Morgan Hobbes

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s overactive imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  www.morganhobbes.com

  www.emaech.com

  Dedication

  As always, for my wife.

  All profits from the sale of this book go towards helping my daughter who at the age of three was diagnosed with autism.

  My wife and I are committed to giving her the life tools she needs to reach her full potential, and every little bit helps.

  If you have purchased this eBook, my family and I thank you.

  For more information visit http://morganhobbes.com/autism

  Table of Contents

  Boneyards

  1 - Echo

  2 - Kara

  3 - First Rule

  4 - Furious

  5 - The Bitza Brothers

  6 - Rats Nest

  7 - Please

  8 - Vacant

  9 - Royalty

  10 - Clothes

  11 - Hell Hounds

  12 - Chute

  13 - Control

  14 - Spider Web

  15 - Celebrations

  16 - Cells

  17 - Death Match

  18 - Impossible Choice

  19 - Fox Hunters

  20 - Subway

  21 - Bunker

  22 - Climb

  23 - Elevator

  24 - Blinded

  Badlands

  1 - Echo

  2 - Kara

  3 - Echo

  4 - Kara

  5 - Echo

  6 - Kara

  7 - Echo

  8 - Kara

  9 - Echo

  10 - Kara

  Acknowledgments

  Special thanks to Kelly and Alison for reading my first drafts and helping me polish the words to make this story the best it could be.

  And to Lana, who applied her own special critique to the pages.

  BONEYARDS

  Part 1 of The F T W Series

  1 - Echo

  My name is Echo Fox and I’m a scrapper. I live at the bottom of your world, in the place you don’t think about. We call it the boneyard and it’s filled with your waste.

  Me and my kind, we pick over what you throw away and salvage the precious metals, which we sell to help us survive another day.

  I spend my days in the shadows of the great monoliths of concrete and glass and steel that cover the earth.

  Today has been a good day. I haven’t run into any hounds and I’ve found a small plastic box covered in buttons. It’s still intact, so I’ll be able to salvage the copper and gold from its insides.

  Tomorrow I’ll visit the Bitza brothers to swap the scrap for a pinch of protein bar and maybe a little water. I tuck the plastic box into my satchel to keep it safe and continue hunting through the pile.

  Hours later and it’s still the only thing of value I have found. It’ll be getting dark soon which can be a dangerous time of day when you’re out by yourself.

  I jump down from the piles of garbage, landing on the bare earth with a soft thud.

  I get my bearings and head for the safety of home. I live with people I call my family though in reality none of us are related. We’re the leftovers of the world above, just like everything else down here at the bottom.

  They helped me survive ever since my mother abandoned me here as a baby, so they might as well be my family. They’re the only ones who have ever cared about me.

  As I wind my way through the dirt tracks separating the mountains of garbage a noise close by makes my blood run cold. It’s the excited baying of a pack of hounds.

  I cup my ear and listen to work out which direction they’re coming from, but the howling noises bounce around the canyons, making it impossible.

  I hold my breath and pick a direction and then run. My life literally depends on it.

  Skidding around a bend, I stop dead in my tracks. A little further along the path stands a pack of hounds, our name for men from the outside world who come to hunt us.

  Three of them against one of me? I don’t like my odds. I curse loudly when they see me, and when they run towards me I turn on my heel, drop my satchel and sprint in the opposite direction, looking desperately for somewhere to hide.

  I can tell by their yelping and hollering they’re getting closer, but I spy a possible escape route from the corner of my eye.

  Yesterday I found a garbage pile with an opening leading deep inside. After crawling through it I found it opened into a large cavern. The pile, stacked high with rusted metal vehicles, had landed in such a way as to create a hideaway.

  I turn towards the opening and glance back over my shoulder. The hounds are drawing nearer and I dive in headfirst.

  Pain shoots through my arm as it slices against broken glass. Ignoring the pain I crawl as fast as I can along the twisted metal path.

  After another few feet I tumble out into the large, open space. I look back along the small metal tunnel I came through and for the briefest of moments the hounds look to have lost my trail.

  My heart stops as one of them crouches and peers through the pile of twisted metal and straight into my eyes.

  “She went through here,” the hound yells, and all three clamber through the pile.

  “Shit, shit, shit,” I say while looking around the metal cave.

  There are enough gaps between the wrecks so that the cave is fairly well lit. I run the perimeter looking for a way out.

  I’m directly opposite the opening I came through when the first of the hounds drops to the ground.

  He gets to his feet and smiles an evil smile at me. He licks his lips and beckons for the other two to hurry.

  When all three of them are on the ground they make their way towards me. The tallest one, most likely the alpha, walks in front.

  “Dibs going first,” he says, staring me down.

  I back away as far as I can but the wall of twisted metal stops me. I want nothing more at this moment than to melt away.

  I’ve witnessed firsthand what a rabid pack of hounds from the upper-world can do. People consider you lucky if you get a quick death.

  The alpha is almost on me and I’m frozen in fear. He reaches out and with his large hand he squeezes my neck and pulls me close. Oddly, there is sweetness on his breath unlike anything I’ve ever smelled before.

  “I hope you’re a screamer,” he says, the menace in his voice unmistakable. “I do love it when you scrappers scream.”

  2 - Kara

  It’s been a good day for me. I found some decent salvage in the garbage piles so I’m taking the rest of the afternoon off.

  Well, sort of. I’ll be keeping an eye on Echo. She hasn’t been scrapping as long as I have and I want to make sure she’s safe.

  I find a large pile of garbage near to where she is working and a place I can watch her from.

  From the looks of things she’s been digging around the same pile for most of the
day. I should probably tell her my secret of knowing which are the best places to look.

  Before I settle in I check out the height of the surrounding piles. There are many things in the boneyard that can kill you. Being on the tallest pile when the claw comes is one of the quickest.

  The machine we call ‘the claw’ is one way the upper-worlders make sure we can’t escape this place.

  If a pile gets too high, the claw gets dispatched to move the pile. The three scoop-like arms of the claw are large enough to pick up the lot in one go.

  It then dumps it at the northern end of the boneyard for the rats to deal with. If the fall and being buried under tons of garbage doesn’t kill you, then the rats most certainly will.

  I don’t need to worry about any of that though because the pile I’m on is smaller than others around me. I recline in my hideaway and get comfortable while Echo continues her search through the pile.

  After a while she finds a small box and I can tell she’s excited about it. She’s been pulling scrap apart for long enough to know a good score when she finds one.

  My instinct to pick through a fresh pile of garbage tugs at my mind and before long I’m picking through the pieces surrounding me. As I dig a deeper, I glimpse myself in a shard of broken mirror.

  People describe my hair as dirty-blonde, but in this place everything is dirty-something.

  It’s longer than I normally let it grow. Any longer than the top of my shoulders and it becomes too much of a burden and it’s now a few inches past there.

  I mentally make myself a note to trim it. Apart from any other reason tonight is a special occasion for Echo, so a bit of extra effort from me won’t hurt.

  The sun is getting low in the sky and Echo has noticed because she’s jumped down from the pile and is heading toward home.

  I wait a little while before emerging from my hideaway so to give Echo a head start. As I climb my way down the pile the howling of a pack of hounds fills the air.

  Damn, it’s coming from the direction Echo is heading. I drop everything I’m carrying to get down the garbage pile as quick as I can, but then Echo skids around the corner and looks at the pile I’m on.

  Before I can shout to her, she dives into the pile and disappears from my view.

  Clever girl! She’s found a tunnel through the garbage.

  I search around the pile looking for a way in. I find the back end of an aircar poking out of the garbage, so I smash away what’s left of the glass window and drop into its interior.

  The front window is missing and from here I can make out Echo about four or five yards below me. The inside of the aircar is filled with scrap metal so I grab a few pieces that look hefty and sharp.

  Below me the hounds have Echo backed into a corner. One of them, the alpha, grabs Echo by her throat and with the other hand clutches the top of her shirt.

  I pick up the sharpest hunk of steel I can find and ready my nerves.

  3 - First Rule

  Holding me by the neck in one hand, the alpha wraps the top of my shirt into his fist. He’s seconds away from ripping it from me when a screaming dirty-blonde streak falls from above.

  I look back at the alpha and find his head is cleaved in two. The huge chunk of metal which did it has sliced down into his body as far as his ribcage.

  Blood spurts from the gaping mess and covers me. Regaining my self-control I pull his hand from my neck and wipe the blood from my face. The former alpha teeters backwards and falls to the ground.

  The two remaining hounds are looking more like scared little boys now their leader is dead. They look to each other trying to work out what to do next.

  Now she has stopped moving so much I see the dirty-blonde streak is Kara. She doesn’t pause for long before she jumps headlong at them, brandishing a makeshift metal sword.

  The one on the right is run through before he can blink. Kara pulls the blade upwards through his gut and churns it around.

  He grabs hold of the blade but it’s too late, he’s finished. He coughs up blood and his knees give way.

  I pull a small knife from my boot and charge at the other who is standing in shock as his friend gets disemboweled.

  I make the mistake of screaming as I run which breaks him from his trance and he deflects my attack and grabs hold of my wrist.

  With his free hand he snatches at my other and succeeds but now we’re both stuck. Neither of us can attack unless he lets go.

  As we struggle, I remember the first rule of fighting Kara taught me: go for the balls. With everything I’ve got a smash my knee into his groin and he instantly loses the will to fight.

  He drops to the ground clutching his sack and I stand triumphant. Kara, who has finished killing her opponent joins me and looks down at the whimpering sorry pile of crap at my feet.

  “You have to finish him, Echo,” she says as she places the tip of her sword against his throat.

  “I know,” I reply. “I’ve never killed anyone before though.”

  “Don’t think of them as people, they don’t deserve that. These upper-worlders, all they do is rape and kill. They don’t deserve your sympathy. You’ve seen what they’re capable of. They deserve to get put down like dogs. That’s why we call them hounds.”

  I still can’t move to kill him though. I should want to, after what they were about to do, but I can’t bring myself to do it. He’s still human, regardless of where he’s from.

  I’m about to tell Kara this when she takes the decision away from me and pushes the sword through the boy’s throat severing his spine. He survives long enough to cough up a little blood then slumps into the dirt.

  “Thank you,” I whisper.

  “Don’t sweat it girl. I’m sure you’ll get there one day. Now, let’s see what goodies these boys are carrying.”

  As we head back to our camp, I look over the stuff we took off the bodies. They weren’t carrying much, but we scored when we found each of them had a couple of protein bars on them. They’ll go a long way.

  We also find a few canteens, mostly empty but getting a taste of fresh water makes for a change, even if only a few drops.

  Each of them had good solid boots though and they’re a useful commodity. The smallest of the three even had feet my size, so I took his boots for myself.

  Finally, we stripped off their clothes and left them there for the rats to eat. The clothes aren’t worth much, but they’ll go to someone who needs them.

  The larger one, the alpha, had carried a small, plastic rectangular thing with a glass screen. Nobody has ever told me what they’re called, not that it matters.

  We get little usable tech down here in the boneyard, and what does make it here gets stripped for its metals.

  Like everything in this world, it’s stamped with the ubiquitous “FTW” logo for FoxTech Worldwide. They’re the masters who control everything, even the air we breathe, and they’re reason we’re in this shit-hole to begin with.

  It’s night by the time we’re approaching our camp. The dull glow of a fire comes from around the bend, but before we go much further Kara stops me.

  “You’ve been going out alone now for a month, yeah?” she asks.

  “I guess so. I haven’t really counted the days.”

  She looks at me quizzically with her head cocked to one side.

  “You really don’t know what today is?”

  I scratch the back of my head for a moment but nothing special comes to mind. Kara laughs at me with a good-natured smile on her face and then slaps me lightly on the shoulder.

  “It’s your birthday, dummy! You’re sixteen today, how could you forget?”

  I slap my forehead.

  “Of course! How could I forget?”

  Truthfully, I’ve never been one to make a deal about my birthday. I don’t really understand why anyone would want to celebrate the day my parents abandoned me.

  My adopted family never speaks of it, and I’ve never pressed them on it. I don’t want or need the details. />
  Kara wraps me up in a hug and kisses me.

  “Here,” she says breaking the kiss and handing me one of the protein bars. “Keep this one as a birthday present. We’ve still got plenty of others to share with the family.”

  I look at the protein bar in my hands. I’ve rarely seen a whole one, let alone had one all to myself. A bar like this I’ll be able to stretch out for weeks, maybe even a month or more.

  They’re packed full of what we need to survive, and they’re the one thing we have in common with the people in the upper-world. Everyone lives off protein bars. There isn’t much other choice.

  When FTW became unstoppable almost a century ago, they transformed the planet. They stripped away every living thing and erected cities that spanned the entire surface.

  That’s why everyone now lives off the protein bars, there’s simply nowhere to grow food. Everyone calls them that, but for all I know they could be made of anything. Regardless of what’s in them a small bite can hold me over for days.

  I turn over the protein bar Kara gave me and look at its wrapper. It has the “FTW” logo and not much else. My stomach growls as it remembers the last time I ate, and I’m tempted to take Kara’s offer.

  “No,” I say handing the bar back to Kara, “it wouldn’t be right by the family.”

  Kara takes it back and laughs at me again, then bonks the top of my head with the bar.

  “You’re too nice, Echo,” she says. “You need to toughen up, girl. Today should have taught you that. A little more selfishness wouldn’t do you no harm, you need it to survive here. Come on, let’s get back to camp then.”

  Kara’s been looking out for me since I was about six. She’s two years older than me so she’s been scrapping by herself for a lot longer, and for the past two years I’ve listened to her stories of venturing into the boneyard.