Beneath the Shadowlanders

Chapter Thirty: Gabriel

Gin and I wait with a separate guard while Orion and Calista go to collect their things. Since we live on the surface already, we're much less concerned by this development – for us, it means we get to go home.

When our comrades rejoin us, red-faced and puffy-eyed, we're shoved into the back of a cart with two other scouts. We're driven first to the supply housing halfway between the base and the gates and each given a small handgun, a knife, a bedroll, and a uniform. We're instructed to put the uniforms on and we do, shoving our clothes into rucksacks provided for us. The uniforms are black, uncomfortable, and warm – a feature I'm sure we'll be more grateful for in the cold of the Shadowlands than we are down here in the warm supply house.

Once we've changed, we're herded back onto the cart and driven to the gates. There, we meet with a Scout Commander. He informs us his name is Commander Hill, and we'll be part of his squad. We are to report to him every morning, to be given our missions, and every night, to report the results. If we fail to appear, we'll be assumed dead, and treated as deserters should they ever find us. The message is clear: if we want the protection of the scouts, don't miss check-in. Food will be provided during missions. At night, when the rest of our squad return home, however, we'll remain on the opposite side of the gate, unable to enter. We may sleep there, if we'd like, in the small storage shed just opposite the entrance, as it will most likely be safer than anywhere else on the surface, but once we exit those gates, we'll never be allowed back in.

We nod our understanding and the gates are opened. Orion and Calista send one last glance over their shoulder to the home they'll never see again, and the four of us step through the gates at once.

When we're on the other side, they swing shut behind us, locking us out permanently.

"Alright, time to get down to business," Commander Hill begins. "Your first mission will be a pretty basic one. You'll join three of my other scouts in looting a few houses in sector fourteen." He points to a colored section drawn onto a map of the city. Sector Fourteen appears to be a few blocks from our shelter, although it's not an area we've explored yet. "Anything you find will be brought back and catalogued. Items you're looking for include food, valuables, intact furniture, and anything that might be useful in the Underland. You'll be given a cargo vehicle to load things into. You'll methodically go through each home until the vehicles are full, then you'll bring them back here for unloading and cataloguing. Is that understood?"

"Yes sir," we mutter in unison.

He waves over three scouts who introduce themselves and lead us to a vehicle bay. We split into three vehicles, each driven by one of the three scouts, and they take us to the section showed to us on the map. We hop out of the trucks as they stop in front of a row of run down houses.

"Alright, everyone," one of the scouts takes the lead. "First house. Furniture first, then food and valuables. One truck at a time. Let's go!"

We run into the first house, finding most of the items intact. We grab all the furniture and begin loading it into the first truck. We take a couch, a bedframe, a few bookcases, an end table, several picture frames, pretty much anything not nailed down. These items will be given away at a lottery to whoever needs them sometime next week.

Next we go through the kitchen, but there's not much there. A few cans of vegetables, some stale boxes of cereal, and a refrigerator full of mold.

There aren't many valuables in the house, probably having been taken already by the previous residents, or by other looters in the area.

We move on to the second house, having almost completely filled the first truck already. This one is a little more rundown. Furniture is toppled or broken in a lot of places, but we find a few things to scavenge. I find myself staring at pictures up and down the hall of the family that once owned this place. It looks like a single father with three children, two boys, one older, one younger, and a girl sandwiched in between them. The house is filled with photos. I find myself wondering what might have happened to their mother. She doesn't appear in any of the photos, even the oldest-looking ones, where the younger boy is only an infant. I wonder if she might have died in childbirth.