Page 1 of Hunter’s Harvest

Chapter 1: Nellie

The sugar barrels were sealed, the crates were loaded, and I had only a few minutes to talk to my sister before somebody noticed I was sitting on a pallet doing jack shit and put me to work. I had to look busy doing whatever trade liaisons did in the bugpocalypse.

I flipped open the laptop balanced on my knees, and the screen blinked to life. The survivor forum loaded, and her username, KimAtFranklin, was already lit up on the screen. I’d tried to get my sister to change her name to something with a little more personality, and it had gone from NewFranklinKim to KimAtFranklin. My sister, everyone.

I wasn’t so sure it was an improvement, but then again, she’d always been that way. She was the booksmart older sister who tended to take things literally, while I was the creative younger one who got hit by the travel bug the moment I finished school.

Me: Oranges are loaded and the sugar’s sealed. We’re on schedule. Just waiting on the go-ahead.

The little “typing…” appeared under her name, and I bounced my knee impatiently, looking all the world like a junkie waiting for a fix.

KimAtFranklin: I can’t wait to see you! Are you staying for the Halloween Harvest Haunt?

Me: I am. We all are. I’m so excited.

The words came out as a squeal before I clamped a hand over my mouth and looked around the loading yard. Nobody was paying attention to me, though. Why would they? Everyone in Highland County had spent the morning hauling citrus, and the only thing they cared about right now was how much their backs hurt and what they got out of it—the rest of the day off and some good mead.

The last time I’d actually seen my sister Kim in person was at the first annual Traders’ Market in New New Franklin. That had been way back in early spring, and it was now autumn already. Half a freakin’ year. That was a long-ass time when she was the only piece of my old life that had made it through the big collapse.

And to think, I’d spent nearly three years thinking she was dead too.

Me: Say hi to Meghan for me.

Meghan was our official liaison for New Franklin. I’d met Meghan at the Traders’ Market, when she’d been tasked to secure trade for our oranges. She was mated to a hunter named Mal’k and was responsible for inventorying the food supply at the settlement.

KimAtFranklin: Will do. She’s excited too. We all are. Oh, by the way, I saved you a bottle of the good hooch. The good batch. Not the blackout batch.

Me: I’ve heard all about the blackout batch. I want details.

KimAtFranklin: I’m sure you’ll hear them once you get here. Ask Dottie.

Somebody shouted my name across the yard, and I looked up from my laptop.

Me: Gotta go. Shuttle’s loading. Love you, sis.

KimAtFranklin: Love you too. See you soon!

I X’ed out of the chat window, and sat there for a moment grinning like an idiot. My cheeks hurt from smiling so damned hard. I closed the laptop and tucked it into my bag, running my fingers over the taped-up edges. The laptop had been the big perk of the job. Trade liaisons had to be well-connected, and the laptop was hooked into the Xarc’n network, which meant I could visit the survivors’ forum anytime I wanted. Everyone else in Highland County had to wait for a community device and return it like it was a damn library book.

The Okeechobee/Highland/New Franklin trade worked like this: Okeechobee had sugar. We had more citrus than we could shake a stick at. And New Franklin had apples, pears, and cider. We needed each other. We’d already done the trade with Okeechobee. So now we had to head up north to New Franklin with sugar, oranges, and grafted specimens for their greenhouse. And I got to visit my sister and stay for the Halloween Harvest Haunt.

I hopped off the pallet and went to find out who’d shouted.

It was Charles, our pilot. He stood looking at a clipboard next to the shuttle. It was one of those slower, larger, Xarc’n shuttles meant for making deliveries. Our group had found it early on in the bugpocalypse, even before we started working with the Xarc’n warriors.

We now used it for trade deliveries like this one. We got all the goodies loaded up and squeezed ourselves in, just me, Marisol, Vince, and Charles. We didn’t get a hunter this time; they were all too busy cleaning up after the swarms. The scourge swarming season was particularly long in these parts. Luckily, it also meant that each nest used up more resources every year. We’d already noticed much smaller swarms this year compared to the last.

Pallets of citrus, dozens of barrels of sugar, and a bunch of grafted orange rootstock meant that Marisol and I were squished in the back where they’d mounted our seats and harnesses. Charles was flying, so he got the pilot seat. And Vince was learning from him, so he got the extra seat we’d installed up front for the copilot.

Takeoff, the part I worried about the most, wasn’t actually too bad, and soon we were on our way.

I’d been folded into the corner, stuck between the wall and a stack of crates, for about an hour when my left foot decided it didn’t exist anymore. I got up and stretched.

“You ladies okay back there?” Charles asked.

Charles had flown this route four times, twice for the Traders’ Market, and twice before with a hunter named Zec’k. It was planned specifically so we’d give all the known scourge nests a wide berth.

“We’re good,” I assured him.