Reclaim: Pilot
"Alexandria Charlotte Vance… right?" The man at the cold desk looked up at her from the file in his hand.
Alex nodded. Anxiety kept her dry mouth shut. "And you're a ranger of the 7th platoon?"
She nodded again to the man's question. She held her gear tight to her body; her legs ready to fly at any moment.
"Reporting for official exposure training, sir." She said quietly. "I was told to check in here for my pick up."
"Yep." The man simply said. "Go wait in the lobby. Your mentor will have all your supplies."
Alex nodded nervously.
She just graduated from the Ranger Academy. It was a program set up by the Reclaimers. They were a military group that was the key reason for the survival of thousands of people in this apocalyptic time.
Alex walked into the room past the man's desk. It was small with a couch against three of the four walls. Two doorways. One for coming in and one for going out. The last shred of all that was normal for anyone who entered is instantly blown away with the first step inside.
She sat down nervously. Her nearly empty backpack only held a spare outfit and a couple pairs of underwear and socks.
She waited four years for this point, almost dreading it. To go outside the comfort of the Reclaimers arms and fight for a dead world. It wasn't exactly a dream for anyone, but someone had to do it. So at the age of 13 you were sent to take a test. A test for your future. It determined where you were meant to be. Then you went to a school and for half the day you learned simple knowledge that challenged the mind and improved critical thinking. After, you went to a detailed training that was more in your expected area. After graduation you moved onto working your field for the rest of your short life. It was a cruel world.
Now, it was Alex's turn.
After about ten minutes, a man entered the room and gestured for her. She looked up at him. He looked about 22 with a stubble on his chin and a wild look in his green eyes.
"Vance?"
Alex nodded nervously. "Y-yes." She swallowed what felt like a rock as her hands shook uncontrollably.
"I am your mentor." He simply stated. "Come with me. It'll be dark too soon."
Alex put her backpack on and followed him through the gutted hospital but now Reclaimers base of operations and housing in one of the larger settlements, Hope.
It was a small town once. Reclaimers moved in and at first just housed and aided people within the hospital after remodeling and reinforcing it. Eventually they expanded and after building a chain link fence around the entire town and setting up a perimeter, and after two years, set up a whole entire town for hundreds of people to live in.
Everything was not perfect though. They just recently lost the settlement, Kald. It was a good sized one, almost three hundred people lived there. So far fifty survivors have arrived at Hope; another thirty at the other four, farther, settlements. The fact that it was a settlement closest to Hope made everyone worry.
That's why Rangers were needed. They were the alert system, the eyes, the ears, and the left hand of the Reclaimers. They were the second most important branch, besides the military that did a lot of the reclaiming and protecting of settlements.
Alex walked out of the hospital following this strange man. It was odd for opposite sex pairs for a Ranger exposure training, due mostly to rape claims that popped up during the first rough years of the program. But clearly this man was a very trusted and dependable official.
"When we leave the safety of these walls I need you to do me a favor and try not to scream when and if we run into zombies. Noise attracts them."
Alex nodded something twitchy. "Yes, sir." Her shaky voice admitted her fear.
"My name is Gerald."
They exited the cold, business like halls of the hospital into the bloody dying light that surrounded everything in it's red glare. "My cabin is about two hours away from here. We must move quickly if we don't want to risk stumbling blind into a horde. Dying on your first day doesn't look good on either of us."
"How long have you been out there?" They walked up to a minibike. The only form of transportation these days besides a car, but most of those were commandeered for the Reclaimers so they can move supplies from one settlement to another or go for massive runs that they did once a week in far away places.
Alex almost went for the job of Runner, but they decided that she would be better as a Ranger. She ended up scoring the highest in her class in all of her classes. Because of that, when she finishes her two year exposure training, she'll be rewarded with her own minibike, an abundance of supplies, and a base made in her vision by trained men. The Reclaimers treat their star children well.
"About my whole life." He stated. "I was born right before the Reclaimers had the news out about their reclaiming of the hospital in Hope. For about three years, my mother took care of me on the road. We stayed anywhere safe and ate out of cans. It was hard for my mother, but five years of hardship paid off.
"We came to Hope, well the beginning of it. Soon after they trained me on being a Runner. They use to start us young when men were in short supply, although I didn't go out very far and as much as they do now. I switched to Ranger when they started that at seventeen."
Alex placed her bookbag on top of a dirtier one already in the basket. Gerald replaced the rope over their items and tied it snug. "At first new Rangers were sent out on their own, but someone found sending them with experienced Rangers had more of a success rate."
Gerald mounted his bike and looked back at Alex. "Hop on."
She got onto the back of the bike's seat and wrapped her arms around his hard abs. It made her cheeks red. The opposite sex wasn't really a concern for teenagers these days.
He began heading for the gates on his noisy bike. He slowed to the double chain link fence.
Men came to him.
"New trainee, Gerald?" The soldier asked. "You sure you don't want to spend the night? A horde was spotted earlier today. A little too close to the perimeter, I'd say."
"I know I passed the horde on my way here. One of em got in my way here and I almost crashed." Gerald chuckled. "Don't worry about me. Worry about tonight. Last night before the new moon."
The soldier appeared off put by his words. He swallowed apprehensively. "Right." The soldier stepped back, a new, more anxious attitude than when he first approached. "Let hope carry you through the night, brother."
The gate opened and Gerald slowly rolled into the space between both gates. People would enter the outside gate and the inside gate wouldn't open until the other gate was closed and there were no zombies in the 'no man's land'.
The outside gate opened and Gerald zoomed into the outside world, without fear. "Hold on."
Alex wanted to scream. She held the man's rock of a chest tight and watch as the world zoomed by.
This was it.
Alex shook, not from the cold wind slapping her skin as she cut through the terrain, but from the cold sinking feeling of her safety letting go.
It was only getting farther away.
It was dark out by the time they reached Gerald's small cabin. Alex's body was covered in goosebumps. She could spot moving figures in the distant night, but Gerald paid no mind.
"Quickly. Inside." He dodged some simple spike traps as he walked up to the small porch. He opened the door for her and she quickly walked into the warm arms of a blazing fire. She quickly rushed inside and embraced that hot comfort.
Gerald sealed the door, holding the two bookbags. "These two bag are holding your new items for survival." He dropped them to her left. "There's a chest under my medical cabinet over there." She looked to her left and there it was, in the corner of the room. "Store your items there. A bedroll is in there. You should probably sleep near the fire; this cabin is quite cold at night."
"Where would you be sleeping?"
Gerald pointed above his head. "In the loft. I know it's quite dark in here, you probably didn't see it. Too much light and they're like moths. Really any stimulation attracts them, but alas another time." He headed for a dimly lit corner and climbed up a ladder.
"Sleep well Vance. You're going to need it."