Amanaki Town. Jason couldn't help but feel safe here. Well, as safe as it's possible for an outsider to feel in a lawless microcosm such as Rook Island. There was something warming about the people in this small town. The simplicity of their lives and the close-knit nature of their society appealed to Jason in an instinctive manner. He was impressed with their ruthless ability to maintain a living, working tribal outpost in a place so cut off from the civilised world. A place where rights as basic as food and communication were controlled by the omnipresent army of mindless criminals who now claimed ownership of the once peaceful island.
Jason pulled himself from his thoughts as he reached the end of the small North-facing dirt path connecting Amanaki Town to the nearby dust road. He felt the weight of his weapon on his back as his primal instincts told his subconscious that he was now leaving the safety of the one place on this island that he trusted. He stepped from the shade of the surrounding trees into a small layby containing nothing more than a few yellow barrels of long-ago-used motor oil, a miniature storage shed containing some rusty tools and what looked like an empty wooden chest, and a beat-up old vehicle which looked like it could have come from the 1970s. It seemed that vehicle aesthetics were of little concern to the owner of the car. The entire underside of the vehicle was rusted to the point of disintegration and the left side of the car's nose was missing, revealing the dirty suspension springs beneath. It occurred to Jason that the island must be bigger than he had originally thought if the locals went to the trouble of maintaining cars. In a place like this, it is unlikely that they would spend time and money keeping a vehicle running unless they really needed it.
As this thought crossed Jason's mind, he looked skyward to the top of the large hill which overlooked Amanaki Town. His destination. The hillside was smothered with all manner of tropical plants – bamboo, palm trees and exotic herbs which he had been advised could be the difference between life and death in the wilderness. The parts of the hillside which weren't adorned with brightly coloured jungle fauna were carpeted with rough, bristly grass. Jason looked higher still until his eyes were drawn towards a spindly metallic structure sticking out of the natural landscape like a sore thumb at the top of the hill. The meshed silhouette shone as the early afternoon Sun reflected from its steel appendages. The radio tower. He wasn't sure why exactly, but it had been made clear to him by the Amanaki Town residents that "getting the radio tower back online was his number one priority." Of course, Jason had argued that he had "far more pressing priorities to deal with." He had explained his dire predicament as best he could. He had told them that his siblings and some of his closest friends were missing, and that they could be anywhere out in the jungle or, most likely, being held hostage in any one of the ramshackle pirate communities that dotted both the coastlines and the mainland. The locals had made clear that they understood his concern, and they had asked him how he was planning to make things right. It had been at this point that Jason had realised that he had no plan. How do you rescue a hostage? How do you save one of your best friends from being sold into slavery?
The locals had advised him that they would be very happy to aid him in his quest, but it had also become clear that they needed his help. They had taken him aside and pointed to a pencil mark on a faded map – a map which Jason had assumed to show most of the island's landmass. His assumption had turned out to be correct, and the locals had told him that each of the eighteen areas marked in pencil corresponded to the location of a radio communications tower. They had explained that the pirates, in an attempt to restrict the lives of the locals as much as possible, had installed signal jammers on each radio beacon, preventing communication between villagers and outsiders. Jason had then been supplied with a semi-automatic weapon and some simple instructions. Bring the nearest tower back online.
Now that the tower was in plain sight, these instructions were not quite as simple as they had first appeared. Not only was the tower located at the top of an incline steep enough to deter any casual climber, but Jason couldn't see any immediate path to the top. He eyed the car again, half persuaded to go back into the village and ask if anyone had the keys. He decided against this, reasoning that there was unlikely to be a safe road to the top of the hill, and that even if there was, the last thing he wanted was to run into another vehicle full of hostile pirates who would shoot out his tyres (and most likely his brain) before he even had chance to stop. No, he would have to make his own way to the tower. There was a large bamboo patch along the west-facing portion of the road, and Jason made his way towards the safety of its long shadows and thick branches. As he slid among the hollow trunks, he turned his new weapon in his hands. The words of a particular local echoed through his head as he turned the loaded gun. "There's a first time for everything."