Kaloo leapt from the truck bed and bounded up to him. She let out an excited bark and jumped up to greet him. The big man laughed and bent down to embrace her and she attacked his face with kisses.
Coal tossed the water back into the truck and moved forward, smiling broadly with his arms outstretched. The man pulled him into a bearhug.
"Coal and Alicia Carson." He grabbed hold of Alicia too. "Where the hell have the two of you been? Kicking asses up and down the country I'll bet."
"You know us so well." Alicia smiled up at him.
"Well, when I was told you were coming to do a job, I made sure I was assigned to your mission." He beamed and hooked his thumbs into his belt.
"Do you know where we're heading?" Alicia asked, raising her eyebrows.
"Yes. And that's all the more reason for me to come along and watch your backs." He looked over at Laurie and me where we hung back by the truck. "I'm Hunter." He walked towards us offering a hand which I took and my hand disappeared within his. Rough callouses grazed my palm.
"I'm Laurie and this is Maya," Laurie introduced us. She had a dazzled look in her eyes and she kept fiddling with her hair. All signs of her previous annoyance with outsiders seemed to have been forgotten.
"Our escapees!" He smiled a big smile and I immediately knew we would be friends.
"Unintentionally," I said.
"So your legs just ran and you were powerless to stop them?" He laughed a deep booming laugh and slapped me on the back so hard that I nearly fell over. Coal grabbed my arm to help me keep my feet.
"He forgets how strong he is, you'll get used to it." He laughed and released me.
"Follow me," Hunter called over his shoulder and he set a quick pace over the green and off through the maze of roads that connected the little city. The huge gun bounced on his back in time with his steps. Eventually we reached a big stone building with little guard huts posted outside and armed guards manning them.
We hurried to keep up with Hunter's long stride as he passed the guards who saluted him and let us pass unquestioned. Beyond the guards, we headed through an archway which s
ignalled the entrance to the building itself. There were two slopes, the one on the right spiralled upwards and the one on the left spiralled down. Hunter headed straight to the left and led us down. The path twisted several times as we descended and then opened out to admit us to a busy room.
We were in a large cavernous space, laid out in a circular pattern. Tables covered with maps and computers and all sorts of research equipment were everywhere. They all pointed inwards to the middle of the room which held a large round table that was obviously the control centre. People dashed about the room checking on information and calling out orders. They consistently looked to the occupants of the round table for confirmation on whatever they were doing.
"Welcome to The Hub," Hunter announced as he strode ahead.
"It looks kind of like the Warden headquarters," Laurie commented.
"Really? I never even saw them," I replied.
"You wouldn't, we had restricted access to our building. No civilians allowed." She smirked at me.
"Makes sense I guess, like the university building, no non-students allowed," I said.
Coal snorted next to me and I raised my eyebrows at him.
"It just seems like a convenient way to make sure no one person can know about everything that goes on within the city," he replied.
"I'm starting to think you're right," Laurie said before I could respond. "I can't believe I never noticed how strange it was before. Any time I questioned anything, which wasn't often, there would be a perfectly logical reason for why I didn't or couldn't know. I just accepted it, everyone does. They really are just coming up with any old rubbish to make people believe that the city works for them as hard as they work for it. It's like the perfect control system," she spat.
"They make you feel like you should be grateful to them for protecting you, but really they were just using us the whole time. Keeping us prisoner without us even knowing about it." I remembered my grandma, too afraid to even talk about the outside world she had known from childhood.
"Striving forward together," Laurie said quietly.
"For the good of the population," I replied, the words feeling so different than they ever had before.
"You're out now, and we'll find a way to let the people inside the city know what's going on too," Coal reassured us.
Hunter had stopped by the big round table. He was pointing at something on a tablet and showing it to Alicia. I walked up and peered over her shoulder, standing on tiptoes. It was a satellite image of what looked like a tiny concrete platform on the top of a hill, surrounded by thick forest on all sides.
"This is your target. It's the entrance to an underground military bunker from the old world. We think there's another entrance somewhere but it must be hidden in the trees as we can't locate it. This bunker is the home of a very advanced super computer.