Blood

24. The Future

We were sitting at the little table, which was heaped high with food from the cupboards and the various tools and equipment Hedges had gathered. Amira scanned the table with a frown, then turned to Hedges. "Cans are hard to carry," she said.

"Carry where?" he asked.

She shrugged. "We'll get to that. Let's focus now on how to make ourselves as mobile as possible." She picked up a heavy hammer and set it aside.

"Hey! I might need that," Hedges objected.
"Use a rock," she said. "You can't carry an entire toolbox on your back." He frowned.

"Take specialized, small tools only," she said, picking up a little pair of needle- nosed pliers. "For electronics. Which I don't understand, but you do, so bring what you'll need to make more of your clever gadgets." She glanced at the repurposed cell phone that Hedges was using to monitor the forest for more signals.

He sighed.

"What?" she demanded.

"I have a whole shed full of tools and parts back home. And even with all that, it's hard to just make a new 'gadget' whenever someone asks for something."

"Good think you're brilliant," she said. "Now, as for the food. I suppose the dried fruits and berries are the lightest." She pulled a number of zip-lock bags toward her. "What else can we bring?"

Hedges shrugged.

"Dried beans?" I offered. I'd spotted a couple bags in the pile. And even though I was getting sick of beans, it seemed like a portable item.

"Falcon and I can live almost entirely off fresh meat," Amira said. "It suits our physiology. But you're going to need a more balanced diet." She was talking to Hedges and ignoring me.

"I don't really like eating meat," I said. "It reminds me of death."

She continued to ignore me. "So," she said to Hedges, "what about just a few cans, like these." She tapped a can of vegetable stew. "And a cook-pot. And don't forget some matches.

"I've got a lighter."

"And a can opener," I said.

"They have handles on the tops for opening them," Hedges said.

"What about all the weapons?" Hedge asked.

"What weapons?" Amira replied.

Hedges got up and began to drag them out from under his cot. It was a fairly big and heavy-looking pile by now.

"Oh. Huh." Amira frowned. "I think we'll have to leave most of them behind. To be mobile, we each need just one fairly light pack. And we have to bring bedding. Are there blankets here?"