He waved Mo over. “Any way we can use the repellent briefly?”
Mo hesitated, thinking. I understood why they must limit the use of the repellents to brief and rare occasions. They didn’t want the scourge to get used to the sound. It worked by emitting a special frequency. I didn’t know what the scourge heard, but to me, it was the most painful frequency I’d ever endured. But I wasable to ignore it for a short time to get work done in the absence of the scourge.
Which was part of the problem. Some hunter groups had been noticing a decrease in the effectiveness of the sonar repellent, since some of the scourge were learning to ignore it. So now we tried to use it as little as possible.
Many hunters suspected the same thing was happening with our lure, but at a much slower rate. We often only used the lure when we were ready to destroy as many scourge as possible, so not many of them lived long enough to learn to avoid it. There wasn’t a next time.
It was different with repellent, and what had once been extremely effective became less so with every use.
“I suppose it’s best to get it done now so the mission won’t be delayed. The earlier in the season you enter the Dead Zone, the better.”
He was right. It was spring, and as the weather warmed, the scourge in the nest would start multiplying, preparing for the upcoming swarms. To be honest, I was surprised the hunters working at the Dead Zone had even agreed to help us get in. It was a bit of a unique request, and I’d expected them to just shut it down, much like that nomad group had. But the Tech Wizard persuaded them rather easily.
They wouldn’t let us in unless they thought we had a chance. And I wondered how they planned on getting us in and out safely.
“You'll want to get your shuttle inside too. I’m sure Sam wouldn’t mind you guys using her workshop. Five minutes,” Mo said. “You have five minutes before we turn it off.”
I grunted in acknowledgement. That was plenty of time to get everything into the camp.
Chapter 12: Kiera
“So you and Bael’k?” Aanya said with a waggle of her brows. “I’d have never guessed.”
“What? No. It’s nothing like that.”
We sat together in the camp’s mess hall, which had once been a restaurant. The gingham upholstered chairs and wooden tables with matching tablecloths had been conveniently repurposed. It was just us ladies: Aanya, who I hadn’t had a chance to catch up with at the market; Katerina, who’d successfully shooed Mo away so we could talk in peace; and Connie, whose mate was off inspecting the training equipment.
I’d just finished the grand tour, hugged everyone I hadn’t seen in months, and even made a few new friends. Heather was from a settlement called Sanctuary. Until recently, Sanctuary had been firmly anti-Xarc’n, but a series of events had shifted things, and now they were allies. She was mated to a hunter named Nov’k, who, along with Bael’k, had traveled down from the Canadian Rockies to join the hunter group here. Then there was Zoey, the nomad now partnered with Harb’k. I’d met her briefly at the market.
I was floored by what they’d done with the place. Before now, all I’d seen were the first initial photos taken from a hunter’s shuttle.
What used to be a sad little strip mall in the middle-of-nowhere America had been transformed into a scourge-killing fortress. But it wasn’t just the fences and gates, anti-air artillery, or even the well-thought-out battlefield meant to make fighting the upcoming summer swarm easier that impressed me. They’d made the place feel warm and welcoming.
Sure, it wasn’t New Franklin, which was a full-on permanent settlement now, but it had heart and plenty of it.
They had warm running water, thanks in part to the large cistern on the roof. And the aquaponics system we’d messaged back and forth about on the forum was doing even better than I thought it would. There was a chicken coop with an indoor-outdoor run that shielded the clucky ladies from the flyers.
They’d even knocked down some of the internal walls so that all the stores linked together from the inside. And despite the barred windows, the overabundance of metal and concrete, and the fact that the living areas had once been offices, the whole place felt lived in, and almost like this had been its purpose all along.
The random toys scattered everywhere helped. It was hard to believe that all those toys belonged to one lucky girl. Mina was Lok’n and Mary’s kid, and I hadn’t seen her since Christmas when Mary had brought her over to New Franklin for the big Christmas bash. She was just at the age where those little horns started to come in. She was so freaking adorable that my ovaries decided to completely forget my whole “no serious relationship” rule and demanded I find a hunter and climb him stat.
And then there was Moose. The chipmunk was teeny tiny compared to Tooth, with the cutest racing stripes down his back. But don’t let his small size fool you; he had just as much personality. But a lot less survival instincts apparently. They had to Moose-proof several areas around the camp so he’d have safe places to hang out.
He was currently Velcro-ed to my backpack, humping the miniature stuffed Tooth.
“You two are going on the quest of a lifetime,” Aanya said, bringing my attention back from the X-rated stuffed toy activity. “Of course it’s like that. He’d never have agreed to it unless you were someone special. But I have to admit, I never would have placed you as a type to do something so utterly cool, no offense,” she sputtered, trying to walk it back. “I don’t mean that you’re not cool.”
I laughed. “None taken. I understand exactly what you mean. I’m the self-proclaimed bookworm who literally works in the library. I classify and archive old webpages all day long. Up until now, my most exciting trip out of New Franklin had been to a freaking library.”
“We also took you to that rich lady’s house, remember? You know the one with all the romance novels you can’t really get at a normal bookstore?” Connie said. “For which the woman folk of New Franklin will be forever grateful.”
“That too.” I sighed. “If I admit something, will it stay in this room?”
I was met by a table of bobbing heads.
“There might have been a teeny, tiny little misunderstanding.” I pinched my fingers together. “The original plan was to get one of the nomad groups to go on their own. A certain purplesomebody jumped in after they rejected the mission and offered to take me himself.”
They all nodded like that was typical Xarc’n behavior.
