GRAVE DIGGERS - Part IV

My apologies again for the delay in getting this installment of GRAVE DIGGERS published! However, I am pleased to report that my procedure went well, and I am now working with my doctor on a treatment plan.

So, here is Part IV!

*****

Part IV:

 

Desi:

“Desdemona? Are you up here?” Desi's father called up the stairs.

“Yes!” She paused her work. “I’m just going through the recent entries to the database.”

Artemis climbed the narrow staircase to find his daughter. Long and lanky, he had to duck in order to fit his tall frame through the doorway of their home office. Desi was seated in front of a large screen. An array of controls and keyboards dotted the console beneath it, piecemealed from what they could afford and parts that had been rescued from the incineration plant. She was scrolling through the recent reports and photographs added to their archival database within the last week.

“How does everything look?” Artemis dropped into a chair beside her, sweeping his long black braids over one shoulder.

Desi frowned. “There’s not as much new data as there should be. This time last year we were working around the clock to categorize all of the new additions, and this month we only collected a handful.”

“I know.” He sighed. “It’s getting harder and harder to beat the military to the archeological sites.”

“Right. The Grave Diggers and their noble work.”

Early on during the Rebuilding, the Intells had been able to catalogue and preserve nearly all of the remaining pre-Quake culture before it was wiped away. Now, the Grave Digger squads were demolishing sites before the Intells could even get to them. If a site couldn’t be documented, the soldiers were supposed to provide video footage, but the data they’d been receiving was increasingly substandard.

“Artemis? Desi?” Edmund came sprinting up the stairs and into the office, his shorter braids flying behind him. “You have to see this!”

“What’s wrong?” Artemis stood as his nephew crossed the room, a tablet thrust out in Edmund's hand like a shield.

“It’s the Grave Diggers.” Edmund panted. “Those pieces of sh…”

One scowl from Artemis and Edmund switched his choice of words.

“Trash. Pieces of trash. They destroyed another graveyard yesterday without documenting the mission!”

“What?” Desi studied the tablet her cousin held out, her lips pursed as the words scrolled across the screen.

“There were at least two hundred graves in that field, all from the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries.” said Edmund. It was The National Newspaper, and offered praise to the squad for a job well done in reclaiming valuable land for their Nation.

“Unbelievable.” She muttered.

No wonder they hadn’t been able to gather much data lately. The military was withholding the squads' schedules altogether.

“They can’t do this.” Desi grabbed her bag from beneath her chair. Slinging the brown leather strap across her chest, she turned to her father and cousin. “I’m going to find out which of the squads was assigned to this site and have a talk with their commander.”

Artemis hesitated. “Dearest, I don’t think that would be advisable.”

“What else are we supposed to do?” She asked. “They’re required to give us three days’ notice before each mission so we can at least try to get the site catalogued before they destroy it. If we can’t they’re supposed to share the recordings, which obviously they aren’t. If we let them ignore us now, pretty soon they’ll be obliterating sites much more precious than this one and not giving a damn if we care or not!”

Artemis sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. “At least take Edmund with you.”

“Me?” Edmund gulped. “Do I have to go? You know they’re conscripting Intell men now, and I’ve got only one more year before they force me to join. I’d rather stay as far away from the military residences as possible until then.”

“Come on.” Desi grabbed the tall boy’s arm and dragged him towards the door. Her long grey skirts swished sharply against her ankles. “I’ll do all the talking and you can just be there for support.”

“Right.” Edmund snorted under his breath. “Me against a room full of soldiers, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that picture.”

******

Puck:

“Go, go!”

“Faster, man!”

“C’mon, what are you doing?”

Puck smirked from his seat at the back of the Grave Digger commissary, watching his squad members cheer and shout at the two soldiers standing on the game platform. The players’ hands were sweeping rapidly across the touch-screens, trying to outdo the other on each level.

Video games weren’t allowed in private residences, where they would be a hindrance to every day productivity, but they were available in military commissaries and community buildings. They provided an opportunity to improve one’s reasoning skills and hand-eye coordination. Currently, the two men on the platform were racing against each other in a series of puzzles that became increasingly more complex the longer they played. These game victories were especially useful for the young men still serving their time in the military. The more rounds a soldier won, the more points he earned, and those points could be traded in for extra necessities or rations.

Out of the corner of one eye, Puck spotted Caius and another Burner quickly weaving their way to the commissary entrance.

“Stop right there!” Caius barked.

The two soldiers blocked the doorway with their bulk. One of the game players, distracted by the noise, slid his hands completely off the screen and nearly tumbled from the platform. His opponent quickly took advantage of the lapse and rushed to finish the last puzzle in the game, earning a mix of cheers and taunts from the others watching.

Puck stood and leaned against the wall for a better view. Three more soldiers wedged in front of the door, arguing with whoever was trying to get inside. Puck was not the tallest soldier in the room, all he could see between the huddled crush of men was the top of a stranger’s head covered in thick, black braids.

‘An Intell? ’ Puck's head cocked to one side.

Why would an Intell be trying to get into a military building? They generally avoided all government buildings unless it concerned their work.

Puck chuckled. To think of all the time and energy the Intells wasted on collecting useless information about a failed society. Just as he started to turn away, he realized the soldiers weren’t actually talking to the tall boy, they were looking down at someone else next to him.

“Listen!” A petite Intell girl finally pushed her way between Caius and the other Burner. “I have every right to come inside and speak to the commander responsible for the destruction your people caused yesterday by -- hey!” She glared up at the brawny soldier when Caius grabbed her arm.

With some minor reluctance, Puck left his ration of ale behind on the table and calmly strolled across the commissary. The taller Intell had stepped up defensively behind the girl. Caius’s eye line only came to the boy’s chin, but Puck knew if it came down to a fight the soldier would likely beat the stuffing out of the teenaged boy.

“Easy there, Caius.” Puck dislodged Caius' hand from the girl’s arm. “What’s the problem?”

“These Intells think they can just walk into a military building and demand that we answer their questions.” Caius snorted, his broad chest puffed out indignantly.

Personally, Puck thought his friend looked like a toad whenever he did that, but generally kept that opinion to himself.  

“Questions about what, exactly?” He turned to the Intells, and his cool expression faltered.

Blue eyes.

The girl actually had blue eyes.

 Puck had never seen eyes as blue as the ones currently glowering up at him. Come to think of it, he’d never seen blue eyes at all, not in real-life.  

They were a bright, cerulean blue, each one framed by a fan of long, dark lashes. So blue they made the rest of her features almost seem hazy in comparison, and none of the other soldiers standing around them seemed to notice.

Puck tried to focus on what she was saying, and failed. How could the others not see this?

There weren’t supposed to be any blue-eyed humans left. 

*****

TBC... 

© Courtney Carter, http://writingdeskblog.blogspot.com, 2018