COMPLETE! The Wasteland. A woman screams in the night. Spotlights flash on a pile of dust in the desolate patch of land that lay just beyond the tall crosses that picket the boundary of Encampment R-34. A group of curious students leave their bunkho...
Most of the building was destroyed, with large gaping holes in the doors, desks torn apart, and file cabinets lying on their sides half-opened like one of those cans of sardines the Scavers often bring home for us. One day I'll learn where a sardine comes from. I just know it stinks when I swallow it down. We saw more crates, like the ones Deirdre showed us, stamped with emblems of the former encampments of the world. These symbols were on other objects as well. Bryne and I liked finding them. We started collecting anything with a stamp on it, and gathered them in a room where one of the walls had been engraved with the most prevalent symbol. It was our world, as Deirdre had conveyed, circumnavigated by books, loose pages, pencils, and letters of the alphabet.
"What do you think it means?" Bryne asked eventually, as we rested in that room beside one another, watchful of the hill in case our Job-head returned to check our work and ruin our time together.
"Not sure," I said. "I can see some of the shapes from the map Deirdre showed us. There's the boot. That main circle must be the world we live in. You think?"
Bryne huffed and then pushed himself up to his feet. He kicked a balled up bundle of plastic sheeting. "I don't care, actually. Nevermind."
"Don't use Nevermind with me. What's wrong with you?"
"This just isn't what I wanted. Not for...any of us."
I chose not to say anything. Bryne walked away and I gave him space because I knew what he meant. He'd always been close friends with Oscar. Now that Oscar was in the Watchmen, Bryne almost never saw him during the day. Watchmen are our guards. They do not speak to us, and they do not look at us. Their job is only to watch over the encampment. It's a lonely life-job, but an important one. Honestly, I think Bryne always assumed that the two of them would be Scavengers together. Bryne hates that Rufus was pinned to be a Scaver. Even though Rufus is a fast runner, the guy is scrawnier than Lenny. Sorry, Luther Priest. Roof was never interested in the land beyond the picket boundary. I guess that's why Bryne went poking around a little more in that room today. He wanted to find something to make it worth the trip. And if he didn't have a good eye, we might not have found what we did.
Scavengers are supposed to have good eyes. Not for seeing, really, though that is essential, but more for distinguishing between things. Rufus doesn't have an eye for the interesting. Scavers are charged to find items for the encampment, but there is so much out there in the world, and it is all foreign to us. What Bryne knows that most don't, is that Scavers need to see beyond what appears to be in front of them. Someone like me can see a wall with a symbol of the world on it, surrounded by books and letters. Bryne saw a doorway.
He found the mechanics of the door after spitting on his hand and wiping the surface of the wall. I'm still not sure how that helped him discover anything. In fact, I was giggling at the time, because I thought he was trying to make me laugh. But Bryne is so intelligent. He knows that there are latent mechanical devices within our encampment. He overheard the Scientists talking about them when he was helping with the panels in the power garden. When R-34 was originally built, there were electrical elements connected to almost everything that are no longer in use. A spark touched his hand and he pulled back from the wall. Then he found a latch that was different than anything he had seen at our camp, and deep grooves indicating that there was a separation in the wall.
Over the course of the next hour, it could have been more than that, Bryne felt every square inch of that wall, until he discovered the second latch. It was near the floor behind a rotted, wooden crate. When Bryne found it, he turned to me and smiled. Kicking the wooden crate aside, he slipped his foot into the gap in the wall, and I watched the front half of his shoe disappear.
"There's an opening," he exclaimed, pushing his foot down.
I heard a spring release, and then the center of the wall divided horizontally, until the top portion vaulted up toward the ceiling, crushing the rectangle light fixtures that were hanging broken. The bottom portion tilted over a desk that had been on its side but was unable to rest flat until we cleared the area.
"What is this?" I asked. "What did you find?"
"Your guess is as good as mine," he replied with wonder. "Secrets aren't meant to stay secret forever. Are we safe to check it out?"
I jogged to the window to see if we were still alone. There was no one coming. "Let's go!" I said, smiling.
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