Boneyards & Badlands: The Complete FTW Series Read online

  Until a month ago, venturing deep into the mountains of garbage by myself was off limits. I had to stay in our camp and strip back any salvage our family brought home.

  One month away from my sixteenth birthday, as is our tradition, I could venture out on my own, and Kara took me out further than I’d ever been.

  She showed me what to look out for, how to identify recently dumped garbage and how to tell what piles would be likely to contain tech waste. After a few outings she let me go my own way.

  The first couple of outings I struck out, finding nothing for an entire day’s effort. Kara told me not to feel bad, there are still days she returns empty handed.

  “Sometimes scrap just isn’t there to be had,” she would say and laugh it off, but I could tell the disappointment in her voice.

  4 - Furious

  When Kara and I arrive back at camp nobody questions us about our blood-soaked clothing because everyone knows what can happen when you’re deep in the stacks.

  That, and the pile of swag we carried with us told the story better than we ever could. We changed out of our bloodied clothing and cleaned the dried blood from our skin as best we could.

  Our camp, my little family group, number around twenty thanks to a few people who drift in and out. We need to move every now and again, especially when the piles get too high.

  We clear out and find somewhere new before a visit from ‘The Claw’. We have to move on because freshly cleared ground is the first place the garbage drones pick on their next visit.

  The size of our family group means others such as the hounds or the rats will leave us alone. There’s safety in numbers and the most dangerous situation you can be in is when you’re outnumbered or alone.

  After handing the clothing to anyone who needed it, we add the food and water canteens we found to the communal supply.

  Nimah, who everyone considers the head of our family, insists I take half a bar for myself. After what I endured and it being my birthday and all she says it’s the least she can do.

  I reluctantly accept, but tell her as thanks I’ll stay up and strip the metals from the tech we found today. She says I don’t have to and it can wait, but I say I know but I will do it, anyway.

  She laughs and hugs me close. Nimah has been there for me from the beginning, rescuing me from certain death from abandonment and being the mother I never had.

  Later, after the commotion our arrival caused has calmed down, I walk off to find the small private area I have created from the garbage surrounding our camp.

  As I squat down to pee the unmistakable sound of childish giggling comes from inside the garbage pile in front of me.

  I jump to my feet, pull on my pants and kick at the pile. A section of it collapses and reveals two of the younger boys from our camp, neither any older than twelve.

  I grab each of them by their hair and yank them to their feet. I’m so furious I can’t even speak. Keeping hold of their hair I pull them along and dump them back inside the camp.

  They lay on the ground apologizing with tears and snot running down their faces, but I’m in no mood.

  I kick at the dirt and shower them in dust. The few people still sitting around the fire burst out laughing at them and cheer me on.

  But what I’ve done is not enough. My mind is a swirling cloud of red fury and black hatred. I kick at the boys again, this time my boot connecting. I kick and stomp them repeatedly.

  It’s lucky for the boys that someone pulls me away otherwise I probably would have kept doing it all night.

  I’m not sure who it is, but I lash out at them, nonetheless. I scream incoherent but venomous words at them as tears flood my eyes.

  Slowly my anger subsides and I collapse into their arms and sob into their chest.

  Time passes and I calm down but I refuse to leave the spot where I collapsed.

  I stay there until everyone has turned in for the night, then pick myself up and sit by the fire and pile the salvage from today at my feet.

  Using my knife I pry the back off the small device I took from the alpha and almost drop it in surprise when the insides glimmer at me.

  Whoever that guy was he must have been super-rich because whatever this thing is, it’s top of the line based on the gold content.

  I pick away at the gold on the circuit boards with my knife, dropping the flakes into a glass vial on my lap.

  It takes a while but eventually I’ve picked every last speck of gold from it, so I put my knife away and stopper the vial so not to lose any.

  I get the sense someone is nearby, and when I look through the fire, a welcome sight is walking in my direction.

  “You’re still awake then,” Kara says.

  “Yeah, couldn’t sleep,” I reply.

  “Are you okay? I heard about what happened earlier with the boys.”

  “I think so. After what happened today with the hounds I felt so violated, I couldn’t control it. I just got so angry, I lost it.”

  “They’ll live, and you can bet your ass they won’t be doing it again. I did something similar the time a hound caught me.”

  Her admission shocks me to the core. Kara has never said anything about being caught so I ask her about it.

  “It was a few years ago now,” she replies, casting her eyes to the ground. “I didn’t want anyone to know so I’ve never said. It wasn’t a pack of them though, just the one. I don’t know if he had plans on killing me, but he kept me tied up, deep inside a pile of garbage.”

  All I can do is sit there, speechless at what Kara is telling me.

  “Every night, after a day of...” Kara pauses trying to say the words. She takes a deep breath and continues. “Raping me, repeatedly, he’d leave me tied up. It took three days before I could escape. He caught me, but I still had the piece of scrap metal in my hand I’d used to free myself.

  “Next thing I knew my arm ached I’d mashed his head into the dirt. From his shoulders up there wasn’t anything left recognizable as a person.”

  We look at each other in silence, the only noise an occasional crackling coming from the fire.

  “But that’s ancient history,” she says, her face brightening. “Come on, I’ve something I want you to see.”

  Kara grabs my hand and pulls me to my feet.

  “Where are we going?”

  “You’ll see,” she says with a wink.

  Kara leads me through our camp and out into the piles of metal surrounding us, but staying close enough to camp to remain safe.

  We climb to the top of a stack where I find what she wanted to show me. A perfectly flat hood of an aircar rests neatly on top of the pile, and by the looks of things Kara’s even wiped the dirt from it so it reflects the night sky.

  “Oh!” I exclaim, working it out.

  When I look up into the sky, my eyes are treated with a rare sight for the boneyard, a crystal clear night sky filled with the twinkling of stars.

  Kara sits down on the hood, and she pulls at my hand and I join her.

  Together we lie back and Kara slides an arm under my head for me to rest against, and we stay that way for hours, talking softly late into the night and looking up at the moon.

  The moon is full tonight, and its soft light illuminates our little corner of the world, making it sparkle and gleam.

  You can almost forget how horrible the boneyard is when it looks like this. It’s mesmerizing.

  The only interruption to the view is the occasional aircar flying across the sky, but at this time of night they’re few and far between.

  I’m not sure when it happened, but when I slip a hand under Kara’s shirt and caress her tummy, I find she has fallen asleep.

  The gentle rise and fall of her chest as she breathes hypnotizes me and eventually my eyelids droop.

  I leave my hand where it is, pull myself closer to her and have the best night’s sleep I’ve had in forever.

  5 - The Bitza Brothers

  The next morning after waking I stand as quietly
as possible so I don’t wake Kara and look out across the vast expanse of the boneyard.

  It looks so quiet and serene at this time of morning, it’s hard to believe how brutal life can be when you’re down in the thick of it.

  Far off in the distance the garbage drones are dropping their loads into our world. They look small from where I stand, but a fully loaded drone can almost double the height of a pile of garbage in one dump.

  It occurs to me this is why Kara brought me here, so she could show me her trick of knowing where to look for the newest scrap. She’s snoring softly next to me so I nudge her awake and tell her what I saw.

  She smiles and rubs the sleep from her eyes.

  “I can’t believe I almost slept through it,” she says. “It makes the day much easier when you know where the new piles are.”

  “Would you like me to join you today?”

  She shakes her head in the negative.

  “No, well not right away. You need to get the scrap over to the Bitza brothers. After the haul from yesterday it’s too dangerous to have that much metal lying around. Cash it in, then come and find me.”

  Half an hour later I’m winding my way through the garbage mountains towards the Bitza brothers workshop. I like the Bitzas because they’re always nice and treat me like family.

  In our world they are an oddity. They’re upper-worlders, living in the sky-high buildings that surround us but spend their days down here.

  Apart from the hounds, they’re the only people who venture down into the boneyard. In the past they told me they’re contracted to trade with us for the precious metals we retrieve.

  It’s cheaper to get the desperate to do it than to automate it, so they don’t even try.

  Their warehouse is built into and through the massive wall that surrounds the boneyard which keeps us in. People have tried to escape through their workshop, but the automated defense systems kill anyone not authorized to exit.

  As I enter their workshop a small bell on their door jingles. The Bitza brothers are identical twins and they always try to trick me, but I’m getting better at working out which is which.

  When I enter there is only one of them behind the counter.

  “Bishop, lovely to see you as always,” I say as a smile crosses my face.

  “Echo! How many times must we do this? I’m Bosco, can’t you tell? I’m the ugly one,” Bishop says with a laugh.

  “Like hell!” a voice shouts from under the counter, and Bosco stands up next to his brother. “It’s plainly obvious I’m the handsome one, don’t you agree, Echo?”

  “I’m not getting involved in your lovers quarrel,” I shoot back and they laugh, huge grins splitting their faces.

  “No Kara today?” asks Bishop.

  Bishop has never made it a secret he’s smitten with Kara.

  “No, just plain old me I’m sorry to say,” I reply.

  “Bishop, you cad!” Bosco exclaims. “You’ve hurt the lady’s feelings. How dare you insult the daughter of our great and illustrious leader in such a way?”

  It’s well known I have the unfortunate luck of sharing the surname of the most powerful man on the planet: Jameson T. Fox, the head of FoxTech Worldwide. Bosco likes to give me shit about it whenever he can.

  “You watch your tongue,” Bishop replies, darting his eyes around as if looking for hidden surveillance, “they could be listening. They’ll have your head for such slanderous talk.”

  He then demonstrates the point by running a thumb across his neck and lolling his tongue out like his throat has been slit. Bosco covers his mouth with his hand in mock surprise.

  “So, dear lady, how may we be of service to you this fine morning? You bring us the usual I assume?” Bishop asks.

  “Bitza this, Bitza that?” Bosco adds, laughing at his own joke.

  “Yes,” I reply and hand him a few vials containing the scraps of gold our family has gathered in the last few days.

  “And your usual payment?”

  Usual payment is a small portion of protein bar. I’m told outside our boneyard the gold we collect would be enough to buy many bars, but we’re at the mercy of the buyers.

  Bishop empties the small amounts of gold onto a scale and weighs them.

  Unlike if Kara was here negotiating, he doesn’t “accidentally” rest a finger on the scales. We always get a slightly better deal when she does the trade for us.

  When it’s weighed, he tells me it’s enough for one-quarter of a bar which I gladly accept and give them my thanks. Between what we found yesterday and this, our family will comfortably have enough food for months.

  With the transaction complete he sweeps the gold from the scales and into a stone container. When they have enough, they’ll send the container along a conveyor belt which passes through the wall to the outside.

  The hatch to the conveyor looks large enough for a person to fit through, but while the journey is a short twenty-feet, along the length are burners that melt the scrap into a single lump.

  Plenty hot enough to burn someone to death before they reach the other side.

  I thank them again and promise to pass on Bishop’s declaration of undying love to Kara, even though she’s not interested. Even if she was, she wouldn’t be allowed to leave the boneyard and be with him.

  As I emerge into the daylight once more I squint at the garbage piles and work out the quickest route to Kara.

  I put the quarter of protein bar into my pocket and wander off down a dusty track leading north. I’m still learning the shortcuts through the piles. Kara has shown me the markings she makes which are unrecognizable unless you’re looking for them. They’re her secret code to help her navigate and quickly escape if she needs to.

  The piles are normally quiet places, but this close to the wall there is a distinct buzzing in the air.

  The top of the wall is topped with an electrified fence, so even if someone scaled it, they wouldn’t get past that.

  After a few twists and turns the snap and buzz of the fence disappear into the distance and I find myself at the shack of a water vendor. Arga, the woman running the shop, is bonkers but harmless.

  “How’s the water today?” I ask.

  Arga leans forward over the bucket of water at her feet and sniffs it. She trembles slightly, a sign she’s had nothing to eat for a few days.

  She sniffs it again as if to double-check, then clears her throat which means she’s about to put on her posh voice.

  “It’s a full-bodied drop, not for the faint of heart. Some heady aromas of,” she pauses and waves her hand over the top, “week-old protein bar if I’m not mistaken.”

  Water is a rare commodity outside the walls, or so people tell me. Inside the boneyard it’s just as scarce.

  Most of it is collected either from condensation or runoff from the garbage piles, which tastes as nice as it sounds.

  I’m sure Arga’s is primarily garbage juice.

  “I’ll trade you a pinch of protein for a sip of your water,” I say.

  “Square deal,” she says then dips a small glass jar into the brownish water.

  I pinch off a small piece of bar and we swap. She gobbles the bar like it’s food handed to her from the gods themselves.

  She closes her eyes to savor the taste and smacks her lips together.

  While her eyes are closed, I quietly tip the brown water back into her bucket. Before she looks back, I hold the glass up to my lips.

  “Very nice,” I say handing the glass back to her, and then continue on my way.

  6 - Rats Nest

  After sending Echo off to the Bitzas this morning, I make preparations to get an early start on the freshly dumped loads of garbage. As I’m about to leave camp Nimah pulls me aside.

  “Kara,” she says, “please be careful out there.”

  “I always am,” I reply.

  Nimah is always smothering me. I get why she does it, it’s because she thinks of herself as the mother of our group, but I’ve been doing this
for over two years now so for me staying safe is like breathing.

  “Where are you headed today?”

  “We saw the drones dropping their loads over near the northern piles this morning, so I’ll be checking that out first.”

  Nimah looks at me with concern.

  “That’s awfully close to the rats nest. Isn’t there anywhere else?”

  “Relax,” I say, slinging my pack over my shoulder. “I’ll be fine, I can handle rats.”

  With that I stride confidently from camp, heading north.

  It takes me a while but eventually I’m closing in on the northern end. While us scrappers have a free run of most of the boneyard, it’s common knowledge the north belongs to the rats.

  A grinding, shredding noise permeates the still morning air which means I’m getting close. You can always hear the rats nest long before you can see it.

  The rats are the people in charge of the recycling plant. Unlike us, they don’t care much for picking out the precious metals from scrap. They don’t need to.

  Their job is to move the garbage from the piles and into the machines where it gets shredded and sent to the furnace.

  Anything that can burn off does and is pumped out as a toxic black smoke from the chimney stacks. What’s left disappears to the other side of the wall.

  There are more air scrubbers at this end than anywhere else because the black smoke being belched into the air would kill everyone, including those outside the wall.

  For doing their job they get paid in protein bars, more bars than anything we could hope to achieve. But long ago they found the bars were not enough, and they hungered for something else. Fresh meat.

  But there’s precious little meat here in the boneyard, apart from us scrappers.

  The rats are as bad if not worse than the hounds. The hounds rape and kill, that’s a fact, but they leave and don’t visit too often.