The People's Alpha ✔

34: Drive

I pushed my way through the tight mob that had gathered around Tim.

Tim was looking rather worse for wear. He had two black eyes and his clothes were bloodstained.

Old man Anderson was yelling quite close to my ear. "What in Monagh's name are you doing now, Jim? Have you come back to save him? Are you on their side now?"

I ignored him. "Tim. Did they give you anything? Anything wearable? Answer me."

Tim gurgled something unintelligible. Then he passed out. So much for that line of enquiry.

I pried open his mouth, ignoring the blood, feeling his gums, feeling behind his teeth, feeling the flat ridges of the molars. Nothing.

I patted down his clothes. A lump. His phone. In one of those chunky phone cases.

Of course. They could have slipped a tracker into it at any time. I popped the phone from its case. There it was. A cavity, gouged out of the rubberised plastic lining of the case. And inside the cavity was a little plastic thing with a blinking red light, held in place with what appeared to be a dab of hot glue.

I put the phone back in its case and slipped it in my pocket. They could be tracking the phone as well.

"Answer me, Jim? What is going on?" "Jim!" The other pack members were yelling over each other.

"I don't have time to explain," I replied. "I'll explain later. Right now, I need to get the hell out of here, for my safety and everyone else's safety. I need you guys to listen to the others and follow them."

They nodded. And with that, I ran for the truck. I could only hope that they understood how serious the situation was.

I drove back along the road I had travelled with the others the night before. At every corner, I feared that the Thunder Falls people would be waiting just around the corner and the whole thing would be over. But it seemed they were running late.

Keeping an eye on the horizon, I finally got the turn-off that the next part of my plan hinged on. I turned left. The glorified logging track I was now travelling on led to a beauty spot nestled in a valley, the type of place you'd take a potential mate for a picnic date. There was a cavern a short walk from aforementioned picnic spot, along the river cliffs. A perfect hideout.

I parked the truck at the entrance to the picnic spot. From here, the trail looped back to the main road, two miles down from where I'd turned off. I got out and hurled the phone into some bushes, as far as I could throw it, and drove back the way I came.

As I drove away, I looked to my left, and I could see the black armoured cars through the trees, heading down from the other direction. It had been that close. 

***

Mercifully, I encountered nothing along the rest of the way. The roads were completely empty, and I made good time. They were clearly not expecting anyone to escape from the cleanup squad they had just sent.

Just before the border of the Industrial Zone I turned right and took a detour into the rough wasteland that formed a buffer between it and the pack territories beyond. It was onto this wasteland that the Interpack depot backed out onto, all tinder-dry grass and plastic litter. Rogues used it as a shortcut, as the telltale paths of desire worn into the ground showed, but today it was deserted. pulled up at the rear entrance, which was deserted. There was a back gate, a set of rusty steel doors. The lock was rusty and the key took a few tries, but soon I was inside. I didn't bother closing the doors.

I made my way through the parked buses to my own car, which was still where I had parked it. The insides of the outer lenses were filthy. Perfect.

I went up into the office. The calendar was still set to the day before. Taking out my keys again, I opened a locked drawer and pulled out one of the satellite phones we used for communication when we did charters for the more remote packs, up in the southeastern mountain ranges. I picked it up, weighing up its dimensions, trying to work out if what I had in mind would work. It was tiny. I remembered the bricks we had to carry around not less than ten years ago.