It was already ten at night when he decided to leave to go see if there were some tools Val had that he didn’t. The key Val gave him not too long ago was so he’d stop brothering the man during the day and interrupting council meetings. So now, Maverick could get in and out of the man’s lab and work area anytime he wanted. Even late at night. Curfew was technically at sundown, which obviously changed throughout the year, and if you were caught outside after curfew you could be subjected to imprisonment or extra chores – but he’d broken that rule on multiple occasions, so he didn’t really brother with following it anymore.
He had been living in the Safe Zone since pretty much the beginning, and had witnessed firsthand the way the council went from merciful to relentless in a matter of a few months. There was a huge decline in population and the amount of people who asked for favors or things.
He kept his requests to himself most of the time, occasionally asking Val for help or to get a part from the auto shop to him because Val could deal with Greg much easier than he, or anyone else, could.
Setting his latest project down on the table he had claimed long ago as his own, he flicked on the desk lamp and plopped down in the stool. The metal radio had been hidden behind a stack of boxes in one of the old military outposts within the walls. It was broken and had been torn apart for pieces, but it was salvageable. He removed the top panel off and rummaged around through the radio, moving around the wires to get to the basic parts.
He was missing a couple things he already knew that he needed for it to work, including a transmitter and some extra wires to connect said transmitter to the rest of the radio. Someone had ripped the thing out of the metal box with enough force to ruin most of the wires in it, so they’d have to be replaced for sure. He had already looked just about everywhere within the walls for the parts he needed and had yet to find them.
So he was left with one other option. He removed all the excess free wires he didn’t need and tossed them in the trash. He’d have to ask Greg for a favor; to leave the camp just for a quick run to the RadioShack he knew was only a short mile away. Already he could hear Val yelling at him that it was stupid to ask anything of Greg without expecting some kind of ridiculous repercussion. He was already banking on some extra work, maybe tilling the fields, working on the farms to help grow the crops.
The word ‘bait’ however, was looming over his head. The first time he’d taken the responsibility was when he was ten, a month after showing up at the zone and he had asked to be given a gun. Greg threw him out there with nothing more than a hammer and told him to run. He lasted a good forty-five minutes before his legs turned to jelly and he tripped. Maverick would’ve died, or turned, but Greg had been standing on the wall and had shot the biter about to eat him, then pulled the kid up before anything else could happen.
Although he was grateful for the man saving his life, he was irate that he had been put out there in the first place, with bells on his wrists and ankles, and the people on the wall making as much noise as they could – it was a wonder anyone survived bait duty. If he was assigned it again…he might not be able to make it. At least not without a few scrapes, bruises, and close calls.
Val...Would save him though. He’d done it before, stopped some of the so called ‘kind officers’ from beating him nearly to death for stealing an extra scoop of spaghetti once at dinner. He hated giving the old man the responsibility of keeping him safe, but he figured that as long as the man took the job then he’d milk the hell out of it.
“What are you still doing here?” He jumped, and glanced up. Val was closing the door to the workplace behind him, setting his keys and coat down.
“I’m almost done with this!” He says, giving no other explanation as he went through his little dance that he swore cause the blood to flow up more to his brain, giving him solutions to problems. He kept his eyes on the table though, knowing very well that in the morning he’d be getting an earful from Val for doing something as stupid as asking Greg for anything. The man just nodded and told him to lock up when he was done. “Goodnight.” He said, moving the light on the desk to illuminate more of the radio.
“Night.” Val said, disappearing into his room.
He spent the next two hours tinkering around with the radio, gathering up all the parts when he was sure no one would be outside, and turned off all the lights. He locked the office door behind him and sprinted back to the apartment building he shared with fifty others. His roommate was sound asleep, part of his body leaning off the bed and daring to fall onto the floor. Maverick snorted at the sight and climbed into bed, staring at the popcorn style ceiling. He needed to come up with a way to explain to Greg that he needed these parts and he absolutely could not go on bait duty.
He’d come up with it in the morning.
Maverick had only been there for five minutes when Val ran in, his hair sticking up all over the place and his hand resting diligently on his gun. His eyes were blown wide and looked more black than they did their natural mud brown. Val was staring at him, pleading silently for him to just walk away, to not even try to reason with their leader. But he needed this. They all did. When Maverick didn’t leave or look away from Val, the man leaned to look over at Greg, who was grinning like a mad man.
“What is this again?
He explains its function again, what he needs, and where he can get it. He focused on keeping his usually overbearing personality under wraps, biting his lip in some places to keep from getting too excited or from shouting.
The leader didn’t take his eyes off of him, giving him a stare that pales in comparison to the dead eyes in the heads of biters. “And why are you so keen on finishing this…art project.”
The last two words were what set him off, and he went on the defensive, lunging forward on his foot and furrowing his brows. “It’s not an art project, if I can get this working than maybe I can contact the other Safe Zones, I have all of their channels, the military left a list on them here, I can-,”
“No matter. You can go.” The first thing he felt was whiplash. To go from insulting him to letting him leave - that was a strange occurrence. So he smiled, and decided that he ought to not spend any more time in Greg’s presence, fearing that the man would tack on something he’d have to do. Maverick bowed, saying that he’d go tomorrow morning, and he was more than grateful to Greg for letting him do this. “But,” Greg began. “You will go today. And you will do so after completing a three hour bait duty.” Maverick felt his stomach drop. He’d heard of the woman from the night before also being put on bait duty, plus another girl who had been forcibly signed up after being unable to do her job for a week. Was he ready to just slim down the town’s population, or was he truly sadistic. He didn’t listen to the last thing said, just shook his head and started talking over the man.
“But. Sir, I, the last time,”
“Yes, the last time you nearly died, I remember. You were ten and you tripped. I was the one who saved your life. I am giving you a fair deal. The reason I instill these duties on those who ask for these things, for these privileges, is so that people will stay inside these walls. I am keeping my community safe. Asking to leave is an insult to me and the entire council, you must suffer the consequences.”
It was like someone had ripped his intestines out, showed them to him, and stuffed them back inside of his body. He couldn’t go through that, no way. His gaze instinctively was drawn to Val, who was staring at Greg like he was going to kill the man. Maverick hoped that Val saw him, saw that he needed his help this one last time. Then he started to get led out of the room, and he felt his head droop, his mind go blank, and his blood run cold. You couldn’t back down from bait duty once it was assigned to you, if you did...then they’d just throw you out there and leave you out there, damn how long you had been a member of the town.
“You bastard Greg.” Val growled out between closed teeth. Maverick tensed. He wanted Val’s help, god knows he’s the only one can put any type of humanity into the council’s decisions, but standing up against Greg was a slippery slope, insulting him was even worse “The kid didn’t even ask for that much, and you feed him to the god damned hobblers!”
“Don’t forget about the runners, they’re the ones that have the highest mortality rate.”
The man’s outburst came next, screaming. What he said could be explained using pretty much any synonym of the word ‘stupid’. Greg pushed his glasses up, and cast a look over at the man. Maverick could feel his presence sink into the background, becoming irrelevant in the moment.
“I have known you for roughly five years now, and I have done nothing but give, and give, and give to you. And all you do is question my actions and my leadership.” Greg stood, walking around the table and towards Maverick. “This is the second person you’ve openly argued with me about putting on bait duty. It is a rite of passage, no matter how many times you’ve done it, how old you are, or how long you’ve been with the group. Tell me Val, how old are you?”
Maverick watched with a shivering jaw as Val himself was assigned to bait duty. The man was in his forties, if Maverick could barely survive out there, there was no way Val was going to make it. He should’ve spoken up, should’ve screamed and fought, saying that it was unfair to put that on Val, unfair to do such a thing to such a valued member of their town. But he didn’t get the chance. Greg waved them both out of his sight.
When they were standing at the gate not much later, Maverick couldn’t bring himself to look at his friend. He had put the man in a life and death situation just because he wanted to finish his stupid radio. Maverick rolled his shoulders, wincing at the weight. He’d been given a backpack to put his ‘art project’ in, told that he’d be informed when his three hour shift was over and at that moment he could break off from the group and try to make his way for the RadioShack he oh-so desperately needed to get to.
The added weight of the radio was going to make his life much harder.
He touched the back of his hand to his cheek, feeling the icy temperature of his skin, the bells on his wrist jingling as he moved. He felt like he was going to chuck that good breakfast he had that morning.
Yan, a man he had known for a long time, just as long as Val, went through the routine speech that had only slightly changed over the years and handed out the hammers to them all. He wished them luck, saying that he didn’t want to retrieve their bodies once they were done. Maverick didn’t want that either. He gulped.
The gate opened with a creak, revealing the semi-empty street he was about to thrown onto. No doubt within the first thirty minutes the four of them would make enough noise to draw a big crowd. He glanced at the three other runners. And then, he promised himself he’d get back at Greg.
Maverick wasn’t going to let any of them die, his own life be damned.
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