vacation, a sight all too familiar once, now a real curiosity for anybody that spotted them.
Edsel was nervous, knowing the longer they were away, the higher the risk and the greater the chance that they would come up on the radar of The Eventuals. So far they hadn't seen any, and Edsel wanted to keep it that way. His skin began to prickle every time he thought about them, what they had done, taken away from him and left him with.
If they stuck to small towns and villages, and explored the countryside for signs of life, then the chances were low of encountering them. It was the old cities where they congregated, their numbers not large enough because of the ever-dwindling population for them to have a foothold in each once-populated part of the entire country.
Edsel tried to open his mind up through his limited skills in The Noise, seeking out hints of life, but he felt like a child moved up a class when really he should have been held back an extra year — he just wasn't that good at it, yet he knew that if he asked Aiden to be on the hunt for girls he wasn't going to be very popular. Or was he? Maybe that was exactly how he should handle the situation? Tell Aiden straight that he should be scouting for girls to meet, doing all he could to seek out the presence of others as he was much better at it than he or Lash was.
"Hey Aiden, you know we had that conversation about girls and that you would quite like to meet one, or, you know... um, more than just meet?"
Damn, I am not going to handle this well.
"Yes?" said Aiden, looking as wary as a pig in an abattoir.
"Well, how about trying to find people via The Noise? Can you tell how old people are if you find them?"
Aiden sighed, and Lash looked at him like he really shouldn't be bringing the subject up. Edsel just shrugged; it was too late now. "What do you think I've been doing since we got here? I've been doing everything I can to try to find people. There just aren't many around, or if there are then they have The Lethargy."
Wow! I got that wrong.
"Oh, okay, right. Yeah, good job then I suppose." Edsel turned to Lash and smiled a smug smile.
In your face!
Lash scowled back at him before turning in her seat. "So are there any people close by? How far does this thing work? Your radar?"
"It's not really like that. You two can do it a little so you know it's more a feeling, although not a feeling. It's hard to explain, more like you can see colors without really seeing them, read the signals like a page in a book, but sometimes the lines just look like squiggles and you can't make any sense of it all. Sorry, I'm not explaining this very well."
"Hey buddy, no problem. You're doing a better job of it than I could." Edsel glanced at Aiden in the rear-view mirror.
He's such a great lad now. We can't lose him.
"Thanks. But there's nobody about as far as I can tell."
"So let's keep on going then, it's not like we have a deadline."
They drove for days.
~~~
Travel was infuriating.
Every single road ended up being blocked eventually in one way or another, and the detours grew longer and longer the smaller the roads they tried to use. Edsel became increasingly frustrated, Lash got quiet — which was always a bad sign — and Aiden was clearly getting depressed.
Where is everybody? They can't all have gone.
It wasn't like the country was devoid of life, but unless you went into built-up areas where people clung to past lives as if waiting for them to return, then it was no easy task to uncover where Whole were trying to build a future for themselves, however tenuous.
After yet another dead end, the road blocked by a landslide where a steep cliff had collapsed because maintenance work had been abandoned, Edsel was about ready to give it all up and go back to the apartment just to give them all a break from each other. Then he had an idea.
We need high ground. Somewhere that gives us a view for miles and miles.
"Does anybody fancy a bit of a hike?"
Edsel
Edsel was nervous, knowing the longer they were away, the higher the risk and the greater the chance that they would come up on the radar of The Eventuals. So far they hadn't seen any, and Edsel wanted to keep it that way. His skin began to prickle every time he thought about them, what they had done, taken away from him and left him with.
If they stuck to small towns and villages, and explored the countryside for signs of life, then the chances were low of encountering them. It was the old cities where they congregated, their numbers not large enough because of the ever-dwindling population for them to have a foothold in each once-populated part of the entire country.
Edsel tried to open his mind up through his limited skills in The Noise, seeking out hints of life, but he felt like a child moved up a class when really he should have been held back an extra year — he just wasn't that good at it, yet he knew that if he asked Aiden to be on the hunt for girls he wasn't going to be very popular. Or was he? Maybe that was exactly how he should handle the situation? Tell Aiden straight that he should be scouting for girls to meet, doing all he could to seek out the presence of others as he was much better at it than he or Lash was.
"Hey Aiden, you know we had that conversation about girls and that you would quite like to meet one, or, you know... um, more than just meet?"
Damn, I am not going to handle this well.
"Yes?" said Aiden, looking as wary as a pig in an abattoir.
"Well, how about trying to find people via The Noise? Can you tell how old people are if you find them?"
Aiden sighed, and Lash looked at him like he really shouldn't be bringing the subject up. Edsel just shrugged; it was too late now. "What do you think I've been doing since we got here? I've been doing everything I can to try to find people. There just aren't many around, or if there are then they have The Lethargy."
Wow! I got that wrong.
"Oh, okay, right. Yeah, good job then I suppose." Edsel turned to Lash and smiled a smug smile.
In your face!
Lash scowled back at him before turning in her seat. "So are there any people close by? How far does this thing work? Your radar?"
"It's not really like that. You two can do it a little so you know it's more a feeling, although not a feeling. It's hard to explain, more like you can see colors without really seeing them, read the signals like a page in a book, but sometimes the lines just look like squiggles and you can't make any sense of it all. Sorry, I'm not explaining this very well."
"Hey buddy, no problem. You're doing a better job of it than I could." Edsel glanced at Aiden in the rear-view mirror.
He's such a great lad now. We can't lose him.
"Thanks. But there's nobody about as far as I can tell."
"So let's keep on going then, it's not like we have a deadline."
They drove for days.
~~~
Travel was infuriating.
Every single road ended up being blocked eventually in one way or another, and the detours grew longer and longer the smaller the roads they tried to use. Edsel became increasingly frustrated, Lash got quiet — which was always a bad sign — and Aiden was clearly getting depressed.
Where is everybody? They can't all have gone.
It wasn't like the country was devoid of life, but unless you went into built-up areas where people clung to past lives as if waiting for them to return, then it was no easy task to uncover where Whole were trying to build a future for themselves, however tenuous.
After yet another dead end, the road blocked by a landslide where a steep cliff had collapsed because maintenance work had been abandoned, Edsel was about ready to give it all up and go back to the apartment just to give them all a break from each other. Then he had an idea.
We need high ground. Somewhere that gives us a view for miles and miles.
"Does anybody fancy a bit of a hike?"
Edsel
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