A vignette by Tommy J. Charles

Travis and his family referred to their subterranean shelter as “the town of Bunker.” Bunker was a four-mile wide cylinder that extended two-thousand feet into the earth. The subterranean city’s engineers had placed the living quarters around a fusion reactor that ran up the length of the base. Only twenty-six families lived and worked in Bunker. There had been others, but many of them fell in battle.

There was one exit to the surface, and it had been bombed in the first decade of the war. The only thing that came through it now was what Travis’s father referred to as “Build-A-Beasts.” They were remote reconnaissance drone kits. Few got beyond that first ruined airlock. They used metallic claws and hooked tentacles to clear a path through the collapsed ceiling, which always lit up the infrasonic noise detectors and sent a security team running.

Presently, Travis stood before a mirror in his room, adjusting his Ready Rangers uniform. His eyes glowed behind a gray gas mask as he ran a trembling finger over his “combat readiness” badge. Travis crossed over to his dresser with two strides and grabbed a couple of stray bullets he’d left there the night before. The gas mask was a “just in case.” Just in case the “goddamn good for nothin’ surface scum” — as his father would say — dropped bombs that day. Bunker was equipped with a 500-foot steel cap that absorbed pretty much anything the enemy could drop, but shock waves played hell on the environmental systems. The day after a bombing, sickbay would fill with people hacking, bleeding, and wheezing. The culprit seemed to be the black mold that lived in the air vents.

Travis knelt down and looked under his bed. The metal deck was cold against his cheek as he reached in and retrieved a long metal case. There was a label on it that read, “Ready Ranger Action Kit.” With a grunt, Travis opened the kit and retrieved some adrenal stims, a compass and an assortment of small handgun components. Travis worked in short, jerky movements, assembling the weapon. Speed was of paramount importance, but so too was accuracy. There was a sequence to the assembly that he had to respect. Short, shallow breaths fogged his gas mask, slowing his work.

Retrieving a clip from a pocket in his jacket, he looked up and noticed the poster on his bulkhead. It depicted a build-a-beast assaulting a young boy. He would have to be careful on patrol. He was certain that no Ready Ranger had ever been eaten by a build-a-beast, but there was a first time for everything. With a satisfied grunt, Travis slid the clip into his newly assembled handgun. It was time to hunt.

Tommy J. Charles is a science fiction author and free-verse poet.

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