Vera saw it first.
"Oh, my god," she said. "It really is here."
"What, you didn't believe me?" James said.
"It's not that... it's just so... big."
Vera wasn't kidding. When they left the forest, the tower massivly presented itself to the open sky. MiMO boxes hung off the sides near the top, most of them fallen to the ground long ago. There was lots of rust on the structure, most of it around the concrete pad it was sitting on.
"That thing is unstable," she said.
"We must be at the right place," Aiden said. He picked up a steel rod. "There's all kinds of scrap here."
"Well, this is it," James said. "Where's the cable?"
"It's supposed to be over there," Vera said, pointing to the tower's base. "They're wrapped in black tubing and go all the way up to the top."
"Okay, so... where's the tube?"
Vera rubbed her forehead.
"It's... it's been cut."
"Cut?"
"Yeah, look at the pipe at the bottom. It's like someone cut it clean from the base."
"Which means..."
They followed the metal supports up the tower. Almost a hundred feet up they could see the black tubing attached to the side.
"It's up there," she groaned. "I was afraid of that."
"How much do you need?"
"Not a lot. Fiberoptic cables are easy to attach. Three feet should do it."
"Then I'll go up and get some."
"No, let me go," she said. "If you cut it the wrong way, it'll waste it. I'll need your sword."
"Do you think you can handle it?"
He removed his scabbard and handed it to Vera. She put it on her toolbelt.
"It's just a big knife," she said. "A really big, really sharp knife."
"Just don't cut yourself. I don't want to have to come up there and rescue you if you have just one arm."
"I'll be fine. Just keep an eye on the troublemaker over there before he steals a gun or something."
"Wow. That's just hurtful," Aiden said jokingly. He kicked around some trash.
"Be careful," James said.
"Don't have to tell me twice," she said.
She stood at the base and looked up. She could make out her target. It felt like it was miles away. She touched the rusted metal with her foot. It didn't move. She didn't know what else to expect.
"Here goes," she said.
She grabbed one of the crossbeams and pulled herself up. The tower groaned.
"Don't make that noise," she said. "God, I hate that sound."
"Pretty sure that thing has a weight limit!" Aiden called up to her.
Without looking down, she flipped him the bird. She was one of the skinniest girls on the ship. James shook his head.
"She's gonna beat you up one day, if you keep that up," James said.
"Nah, man. The girls love me."
He crossed his arms.
"Who?"
"Well, there's... Vera..."
"Uh-huh..."
He snapped his fingers.
"The chick with half her head shaved off. I think I caught her looking at my butt the other day."
"You've just got a cute butt," James said. "Big deal."
"It is a big... wait, did you just call my butt cute?"
James leaned over to look at his rear end at a different angle.
"Yeah, I can see why a girl would stare."
He looked down behind him.
"What? Is something on my pants?"
"No. Just admiring is all."
Aiden looked embarrassed. James laughed.
"Come on. Let's see if we can find something useful down here."
They overturned random scraps, some old signs, and discarded trash. Whatever wasn't decomposed, they looked at closely.
"It's like they just dumped their trash here," Aiden said. "Is this what our ancestors did?"
"Yeah. A lot of it. The people who didn't care are the ones who triggered it. Oil companies, water pollution, carbon emissions... they all destroyed our home."
"And this stuff is still around," Aiden said. "Man, no wonder this place hates us."
The giant mounds of trash were blocking their view of anything else. The smell was horrid.
"I thought I saw buildings when I climbed the tree," James said. "I can't see anything through this trash."
"We should check it out," Aiden said.
"I don't think that's a good idea."
"Come on. We might find something. Maybe there's some food somewhere. Those cans are supposed to last for centuries, last I heard."
"Vacuum-sealed. Yeah, they should still be edible. Maybe it wouldn't hurt to go look..."
Vera yelped. James and Aiden looked up. She had grabbed a bad crossbeam, and it broke from the rust. She hugged the corner.
"You okay?" James asked.
"Yeah! Never better!"
"Do you see the buildings from up there?"
"Uh... yeah, I do! They're not huge, but they're still standing!"
"We're gonna go check 'em out! Are you okay with us leaving?"
"Oh, yeah! I'll just sit here, contemplate my life choices, maybe take a swan dive to the ground just to end it. No big deal."
"I can stay behind if you want," Aiden said.
Vera shook her head, which was a bad idea. It disoriented her more.
"No! No. You should go with him. You'll cover more ground that way. There might be something we can use. Some piping would be great! We can have showers on the ship, again."
"Don't remind me," Aiden said. "I smell like an ogre."
"We'll be back soon!" James said. "Shout if you need us!"
"Pretty sure it'll be too late by then, but okay! Have fun exploring!"
"If we find some cake in a can, we should give it to her," Aiden said. "She deserves it for climbing a giant zipper."
"Did they make canned cake back then?"
"I dunno. I just want cake. The prison cafeteria had it once a month. It wasn't the best, but it was still cake."
They wandered around the mounds of trash. Aiden wanted to dig through the trash and find things that could be reused, but the smell kept his grabby fingers at bay.
"There's so much under here we can't see," Aiden said. "So much gone to waste."
"Welcome to the past. Nothing was wasted on Canis, but here? It was a daily ritual."
"Why? Why would they do this?"
"People didn't care. As long as they couldn't see it, they chose to ignore it."
James stomped on the ground.
"I bet the ground is full of trash, too."
"What? Really?"
"Yup. They would dig out landfills and fill it with trash. Put dirt back over it, and it's like it didn't exist."
"Except it does. Anything inorganic that isn't reprocessed for reproduction can last for a millenia. Longer, even."
"Earth would have gotten so crowded, it wouldn't have mattered," James said. "Humanity was already facing an overpopulation event in many cities. Economies failed, people starved... so much happened."
"It could all have been prevented," Aiden said.
"Yeah. It could have."
They didn't speak again for a while. Aiden just admired the amount of garbage that was just discarded and forgotten without envy. When he thought it would end, another large mound would come up.
Meanwhile, Vera was making quick progress. She overcame her fear of falling and braved going up even farther.
"Girls rule, boys drool? More like... boys work, girls twerk. Wait, that's not how it goes..."
She didn't know what she was saying. She was blabbering on to distract her from the fact that she was nearly a hundred feet off the ground. Her chances of survival were dropping the higher she went.
"When we get rescued, I better be getting a medal for this. Hazard pay, at least!"
She finally reached the cables. They were attached to the tower with metal braces like a giant house gutter. She positioned herself so she was facing inward. Her legs dangled off the side. She unsheathed the katana. She had to cut it at an angle, or connecting the ship's cables would prove more difficult. She made sure she had balance and put as much force as she could into the pipe. It cut at the angle she wanted all the way through. It fell limp against the brace.
"Phew."
The hard part was over. Now it was a matter of getting it to the ground. She looked at the rivets holding the brace in place. It was coated in a thin layer of rust. It wouldn't break free. She checked her belt. She wished she had a drill to make the process faster, but there was another way to remove a rivet.
She took out a small hammer and a chisel from a pocket in her belt. When she was bored, she would sometimes chisel out drawings in the wall on the colony. She still had the same one her father gave her. It was worn away from years of use. She had to sharpen the chisel every now and then, but it was far from broken. She angled the chisel under the rivet and hit the handle with her multitool-hammer.
She did that repeatedly until the top of the rivet popped off. She moved to the next one, repeating the same process for each one. On her sixth, she glanced off the side of the handle and hit her thumb.
"Mother–"
She bit her tongue. She sucked on her thumb and felt like a baby. She shook off the pain and went tapping away on the rivet again. There were twelve total. Once the last one broke, the brace loosened enough for the cable to fall free. It thudded on the concrete. She took a deep breath and put away her tools.
Now the fun part, she thought. Getting back down.
While she fought the wind on the way down, James and Aiden noticed the ground changing. It went from dirt to asphault.
"I think we're almost out," James said.
"I hope so. This is depressing. So much stuff gone to waste. In prison, you don't waste anything."
"We can come back later with a party."
"Nah. The smell is enough to make me look the other way. Even if we could fix the ship with crap lying around here, I'm not touching it. All of that bacteria... no, thanks."
"Yeah, good idea. Too bad there isn't a firehose or something like that to wash it off with."
"Waste of time. I don't think acid could get rid of it."
They went around another pile and stopped. James covered his eyes with his hand.
"Those are buildings, right?" James asked.
"Yeah. They're pretty close by, too," Aiden said. "There's gotta be food there."
Aiden took the last swig in his canteen.
"Maybe some fresh water, too. I'm out."
"Ditto."
Vera landed on the ground. She relaxed and sighed. She smiled a little at herself.
"That was crazy," she said. "Self-reminder: never do that again."
She picked up the cable. It stuffed her backpack full, but she could carry it. She put her backpack on. Her canteen fell out. She leaned down to pick it up.
*whack*
She jumped. A spear hit the tower and fell harmlessly to the ground. She looked back at the forest. Someone wearing a skull mask stood up. They shouted, and more of them ran out of the brush.
"Oh, crap!"
She scooped up the canteen and ran for it. She barely caught the bad smell from the piles of trash.
"James! Aiden! POACHERS!"
They heard Vera's voice.
"Vera?" Aiden said.
"She said Poachers," James said. "Come on!"
James took the lead. Juno and Aiden followed from behind.
"They're coming!" Vera shouted.
"Where are you?" Aiden called.
She ducked. A round of spears went by her, somehow missing.
"Over here!"
"This way!" James said.
Vera ran as fast as she could, but they were faster. She couldn't dodge them. They gained on her quickly.
"Vera, here!" James said.
She saw them and ran into their open arms.
"Go, go!" She pushed.
A spear went by Aiden's head. They ran back the way they came.
"We're going the wrong way!" She said.
"Tell that to them!" Aiden pointed.
The hunters were gaining on them, throwing spears and shooting arrows. Their feet hit the asphault, and James took point. They made it out of the landfill and followed the two-lane road to the town. Vera chanced a look back. They stood at the edge. They stopped their chase.
"I... I think we did it," Vera said. "They stopped."
James looked back. He was about to slow down when he collided with something hard. He bounced back and hit the ground.
"James!" Aiden said.
He sat up and rubbed his head. Vera crouched and helped him up.
"Are you okay?"
"Yeah... what did I hit?"
They looked around.
"I... don't see anything," she said.
"Wait..." Aiden said.
He stepped forward in front of them. He reached out to touch the invisible object. The air rippled with his touch.
"The hell?"
He put both hands over it, wiping them all over the invisible wall's surface.
"What is it?" Vera asked.
James thought it was familiar.
"On the colony, they had a force field installed to stop the TransArks from being boarded past the threshhold. That's how Mark's father got left behind. It looks like the same thing."
"But why?" Aiden said. "And how did it get here?"
"Um, guys? I think we have a bigger problem," Vera said.
She pointed to the Poachers. They just stood there, watching them. The archers didn't even shoot at arrow. They were certainly close enough to be hit.
"What? They're keeping their distance," James said. "That's good."
"No, James. That's bad."
"How is that bad?"
"They stopped for a reason. They're not even shooting us. Why?"
The color of the horizon changed. It went from bright blue to a dark red. A loud buzzer echoed across the land. Aiden jumped back from the wall that had changed color. There was a mechanical sound from above them. They looked up. High in the air, black panels appeared on the plane. It was like garage doors had opened into three tunnels.
Three small ships came out. Their beetle-like features were unmistakable. They were Drax in origin. Aiden dumbly pointed at them.
"That's why," he said.