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Voyager: Chapter 4

"Just our luck." I peaked around the corner to see three collectors. One was one of the insanely retarded first generation as we had called them and that would have been fine if the other two weren't the newer green generation collectors. The first generations could be easily dispatched since they just had no clue to what was going on, but the green ones were more of an unknown.

I leaned back around the corner to face Crane. He had a large bag strapped around his shoulder which carried most of our food. I carried the water and the rest of our supplies were evenly distributed. The one thing he did have that I didn't was that gun of his. I tried to convince him that it just wasn't worth bringing, but he insisted on keeping it and I didn't press the matter anymore. Shooting these collectors wouldn't do us any good, we were still in the heart of the industrial sector so there were alternate paths that could be taken, but we would have to hurry if we wanted to be out before the patrols peaked at nightfall.

"What is it? Collectors?" He asked, clutching his rifle. The thing was almost as large as himself and yet he carried it around as if it weighed nothing. I was a bit jealous, I could carry the water, some supplies and not much else. There was no reason for me to get insanely in shape like Crane when I was simply working at the water sanitation plant. The most exercise I got was walking from one building to the next while doing my routine checks. Any heavy lifting that needed to be done was handled by machines. I was though, in the best shape of my life now, surviving in an apocalyptic world did that.

"Three of them." I confirmed. "We need to go around."

Crane closed his eyes and took a deep breath. "Alright." He pulled out the map from his pants pocket and set it down on the ground, setting his pack and gun off to the side. There was nice straight line drawn on it that marked the path we were going to take. He pulled out a pen and drew a new line going around where we were and reconnecting it to the original line. "There." He said and showed me the map.

"Okay, that won't take long." It was just a one block detour and the day was still young. We had started off before it got light out to give us the most amount of time as possible.

Crane folded up the map carefully to prevent tears and stowed it away. He got up and put the pack back on and retrieved his gun. Wordlessly he turned around and we started to go down our new path.

-Three hours later-

I looked up at the wrecked buildings that lined the streets. We had just crossed over into the high tech industrial area. I had never been here and always assumed that the buildings everywhere in the city looked the same, but these ones were different. This was where many of the factories that produced ship parts were located. Since most ships used fusion or fission reactors, the factories had to have the best equipment to handle the materials. If you had the best equipment, you needed to construct the factories out of the best materials to protect your investment and one thing led to another. These buildings would have been shimmering in the sunlight, underneath the scorching I could make out the sheen of metal. This place would have looked like some overly enthusiastic prediction for a utopia if it didn't smell of death.

Crane noticed the smell well before I did. "I smell something." He put up a paw and we stopped.

I watched nervously as he sniffed the air. His wet nose quivering as it took in the air. He closed his eyes and took in a deep breath and then gagged.

"Shouldn't have done that." He spat onto the ground a few times.

"What is it?" I took a bottle of water out of my pack and offered it to him. He took it graciously and took a long drink from it.

He put the cap back on and stowed the bottle in his own pack. "Rot." He said disgusted with what had just violated his nostrils. "Lots of it."

That was actually strange. Out of all of the time we had survived, there was never that much death around. There were plenty of signs, blood splats or a body that was deep inside a building, but almost everybody was quickly dragged off by the collectors.

"You don't think we're getting close to where they're keeping the bodies, do you?" I asked him. It was the only reason that I could think of that would explain why there was a smell that would nearly make Crane lose his breakfast.

He shrugged and rubbed at his nose which was now running. "Whatever it is, I think we should divert again to avoid it if possible."

-Four Hours later-

I looked at the map. The once straight line with only one reroute was now a mess of detours and detours for those detours. We had severely underestimated how many collectors there were and were forced to change direction so many times. There was nothing to do, a confrontation would just be stupid, we hadn't survived this long by attacking everything that moved and we weren't about to change now.

"We're not going to make it out of the industrial sector tonight." I looked up at the sun, it was still high in the sky which was good. Crane was sitting with his back against the wall eating some canned beans. We had decided to rest for a bit. All of the junk of the road made it difficult to make progress without a lot of effort. Some of the buildings hadn't fallen straight down on themselves, many would fall sideways and block off entire roads. We had stopped at one such location and now I was marking down the new path to get around it.

"No." Crane muttered into his can. I had noticed quite some time ago, Crane's cheery old self had become somewhat bitter. He still had moment when he would crack a joke at an opportune moment, but those moments were becoming few and far in between. I was hoping a change of scenery would fix that, but that was going to have to wait until we got out.

The wind started to blow and buildings eerily creaked as their walls swayed under stress. The area outside of the high tech sector was no more than a bunch of slums meant to house the lower class workers. Some of these buildings had been built hundreds of years ago and should have been demolished. Yet, the need to make money had kept this place in the shadow. We needed to get out, I didn't want to stay the night here, if I could help it. There was some heavier industry before the suburbs and if we could make it that far, I think that we would have made good time, all things considered.

I would have liked to have had a watch, but no one had those anymore. In the city there were clocks everywhere you went. I had thought about buying one, they were cheap and looked good in a suit, but never did. I regretted that now. Keeping track of time was more important now since missing a deadline here could mean death rather than a scolding from your boss for being late.

I picked up the map and went to sit my Crane. I laid it out on my lap and pointed out the new path we were going to take. "This is going to take us past a series of stores. We could stop there for a few minutes to see if there's anything left."

"Sure." Crane dug out a can of beans and handed them to me.

I folded up the map and took the beans. Using a pocket knife that I now carried around everywhere, I began to cut off the top of the can. I was met with a rather powerful odor and the sight of a brown paste. I missed that first dinner that Crane had made when he had saved me. That was quality food, unlike the stuff that I was now scooping into my mouth. The texture was unique... no just bad... I didn't complain though, it wouldn't do anything for our situation.

"Hey Liam?" Crane sighed and set aside his now empty can off to the side.

I swallowed the beans in my mouth and rested can on my thigh which were now beginning to tighten up from all of the walking. "What?"

"You lose anyone from all of this?" He was looking up at the sky with soft eyes. It almost seemed like he was going to cry.

My mind went to my wife immediately. I didn't lose her because of the aliens, but I still lost her all those years before. She had always loved to travel, not in space though. The idea of getting onto a ship that would bring her up to an airless could environment would scare her. We had been saving up to go to Belgium for vacation. From there we would tour Europe and all of the cities. When I had finally bought the tickets and made the necessary reservations to a tour company in Brussels, we were so excited.

It would have just been the two of us on a little adventure to get away from the hustle and bustle of New York and enjoy ourselves together. Though, a pipe break at the plant delayed me for one day. It was no problem, the airline I had used allowed for one day delays and my wife went on without me. I was going to meet her at the airport the next day and this one day would allow her to get as much shopping as she wanted out of the way since she knew I didn't enjoy going on her little escapades.

I was at the airport waiting for my flight. I was thinking about how the HMS Eurasia had been lost to a terrorist attack two weeks before. My wife was now officially justified in her unwillingness to travel in space. The flight was not for another two hours and I was spending my time reading the time away.

I was sitting in front of one of the numerous screens that constantly broadcasted the news in case there was something going on that would cause a delay. A lot of flights were delayed that afternoon and the weeks that followed.

I had looked up to check the time and was met with the images of flattened landscapes. I wasn't sure what I was looking at so I asked the person next to me who was indulging himself in a hamburger. When he saw the image, his burger dropped to the floor. It wasn't long before huge crowds massed near their closest screens. I watched in horror as a list of military bases and cities slowly scrolled as the reporters frantically tried to report on the massive nuclear attacks.

The footage cut to a room where an important looking man was talking in a room where dozens of reporters were. It was NATO headquarters in Brussels, Belgium. It was where my wife was at, happily shopping away, waiting for me. There were gunshots and suddenly the image was gone. My heart was beating and the entire room was silent. Everyone in the airport had sucked in a breath and was waiting for something to happen. The footage switched to an equally shocked reporter who after a moment and a cough from off screen reported that Brussels had been hit by a nuclear weapon as well.

All the flights were cancelled as the US government closed it borders and essentially declared martial law. I went home and tried to call my wife. The only reply I got was an automatic one that told me that the call could not make it through due to technical errors and that I should try again at a later time. So I waited and waited, trying to call every ten minutes. Eventually I would just get a busy tone signal. I just sat at home and waited for a call, a call that never came.

Looking back over at Crane, I wiped a tear away before he noticed that I was crying. He was still looking up at the sky, searching for something. "No, this mess didn't take anyone from me, but I did lose someone before years ago." I picked up the beans, several tears had fallen in them, but I ate them anyway. No need to be picky.

"Oh." He said quietly.

'Did you lose someone important to you?" I asked being genuinely concerned and curious. We hadn't talked about each other's lives much. Each day was spent scavenging and talking about that.

"I don't know." His eyes slowly panned across the blue sky. "I just don't know." He was waiting for something, he had been waiting for something that never came for all of these months. That was why he was so down.

What did he lose? Was it family, friends or a loved one? I didn't feel like it was appropriate to ask right now, maybe once we got out of the city.

I finished my beans and tossed the can aside. "We should get moving." I stood up with a groan. My legs had really tightened up even though I had only been sitting for about ten minutes.

"Best to get as far as we can." He agreed and slowly lifted himself onto his feet. He grabbed his bag and rifle.

I grabbed my own bag and led the way down out new route that would hopefully get us out of this horrible place. Occasionally I would look back and see him looking up at the sky, eyes searching, him waiting for something.