Scavengers {#Wattys2016}

Chapter Twenty One

The Hunter stepped forward his boots touching the sand. The edge of the desert. He scanned the horizon sniffing. His eyes stared quietly in the silence of the breeze. 

'They went out here?'

The repeater laughed scoffing, "Well aren't these ones insane". 

He crossed his arms and ran his fingers through his hair. He still didn't like the idea of having to work with these two. They only slowed him down. Plus not to mention The Hunter was a mute man. All he could do was grunt and let out ugly growls. A hound sounded better than him. 

"They are desperate", said the Seer. 

"I don't care, beats me if we find them passed out and dead in this desert", said the Repeater. 

He thought the Seer had a soft spot for these filthy people. He always thought that the Seer gets blinded. Ironic. But the Repeater and the Seer in truth shared common feelings about the filth behind the walls. Both of them despised illegals. 

The illegals had no right to be here. Why wouldn't they just go away? It was a bother that the Seer had to be out here for this. She was insulted that she was being forced to go on a field test to eliminate illegals. She was designed for more than this! She had much more potential and now she was sent out to do this. 

The Seer really didn't like Dominion's decision to allow this. He had sent them as a gift to the President of the New World Order. Now Dominion was just going to let her boss them around. The Seer had been specially selected. She was special! She was qualified to be put under the experiment and brought outstanding results. Now this! 

It angered her and her fingers curled clenching her black leather gloves just at the thought of this. 

Her twin brother the Hunter glanced at her feeling the tension. But he said nothing. He couldn't do anything but growl. If he could speak he wouldn't know how to express what he thought. Because the Hunter thought of something entirely different. 

He blamed it on his animistic instincts, implants, and mutations. The Hunter actually respected the ones they were hunting. He respected them because they were good. They defied the odds and had evaded him. Normally it only took the hunter 30 seconds to catch a scent within the lab. But here.....here it was different. Here he could barely catch a whiff of what he wanted. 

Because the Hunter had forgotten one important aspect of it all. The Hunter was no longer in a laboratory based on experiments designed to assess him. No more machines calculating anything and setting up demonstrations and terrain.  

""This was the real world. And the largest problem that none of them could assess was that here... everything is possible. Anything can change. ""

The Hunter placed his hand on the ground gabbing the sand. He had not seen real sand before. It was coarse. Warm and strange. He let it slip through his fingers and some bits stuck to his hands while the other drifted down and away. He knew that the ones they were pursuing had been here. Three days prior...about. The Hunter wasn't sure though. There were too many other scents around that were distracting him. 

The Seer on the other hand was overwhelmed with the extensive color of the sand which shot back brightly into her hidden eyes as the sun reflected off it. 

The Repeater, he had one problem, there were no targets around for him to start doing what he was supposed to do. He honestly wanted to dump the Hunter and the Seer and go off on his own spree. But he was smart and knew he needed them both if he wanted to get to the targets. 

"Can we get going? We've probably already lost them by now to the desert", said the Repeater utterly annoyed. 

The Hunter stared at him silently unable to say anything. Then he returned his gaze to the desert without a sound or word. 

The Seer stepped back and stared. She stood stock still her eyes narrowing as she stared farther and farther and farther. She traversed over the landscape hating the color blazing back at her. She stared harder. 

That's when she caught it. 

A group traveling up the dunes. Small and tiny. But they were moving. 

The Seer snapped back stumbling falling onto her back screaming and holding the shield against her eyes. She was in utter agony. The Hunter jolted his head up at the cries and stared as he saw The Seer, his twin sister screaming and rolling around in the sand. 

"Oh come on! What now?", asked the Repeater thinking it was a joke. It looked like a joke. There was nothing around for miles a far as he could see.

The Seer grinded her teeth crying, "She stared back!", she cried. 

The Seer couldn't get the thought out of her head. How had she known? How had she known she was being watched?! How!? How!? How!? 

Why did she stare back as if she knew!?