#did you know that underground shelters are apparently safer during earthquakes than surface ones?

[too-many-blorbos]

Part Five of Prisoner's Dilemma

Night became day became night. Weary feet plodded down the rutted dirt road. We rested rarely, sharing the scant rations the prison had sent with us. To their credit, the officers ate no better than we did. I’d wager that was a matter of practicality rather than solidarity, but it spoke to their character. We prisoners were used to a poor diet, but the soldiers with us were privileged enough that cheese and stale crackers were a long step down from their usual meals. Yet they ate without a word of complaint. These were disciplined soldiers focused on a goal. It made me more curious–and more wary–of what that goal was. 

At the third dawn, the colonel called a halt. By now, our march had taken us deep into the valley overlooked by the prison. I leaned against a shaded rock while the officers pored over a map, as they’d often done on this trip. Even from a distance, I could tell the map was out of date; it showed the River Minor flowing east off the border rather than ending in a lake. Lake Minor had existed for over a century, since the Cauldron erupted and left a mile-wide crater in place of the riverbed. There was no reason for a soldier–a colonel, no less–to use such an old map. The army was meticulous about cartography, they’d never let an officer go around without an accurate chart. 

“Prisoners! Fall in!” The colonel barked. She thrust the ancient map back at her subordinate as the prisoners scuttled into some semblance of order. We stood in a sloppy line as she paced before us with ramrod-straight poise. 

“We are searching for a manmade structure, old, most likely hidden beneath vegetation or rockfall. You are here to aid the search and to assist in clearing it of debris and hazards. In return, you will be pardoned when the task is done.” The colonel gave us all a stabbing glare. “Only when the task is done. Run off and I’ll knife you myself, and it’ll be a far slower death than the gallows I saved you from. Am I understood?”

We understood. The motley band split off to search the valley. I beelined for the officer with the map. 

“Ma’am? May I see the map?”

She glowered like a cockroach had asked her for a kiss. “You don’t need it.” I was a stubborn cockroach. “May I see the map? For the sake of efficient searching. Ma’am. Please? Ma’am. The map, ma’am. Ma’am!” I followed her for several minutes parroting my request. She finally yielded, cursing me viciously as she held the chart up for study. It was an old map indeed, etched on vellum instead of flax cloth as was common in the modern age. In the valley where we stood was a city’s symbol stamped against the southern cliff. It was labeled “Avoid” in an archaic script, the kind common several centuries ago. I had to wonder why we were ignoring that advice.

“Satisfied?” The officer snapped.

“Is this from the 9th Centennial?”

“Not your business.”

“If you say so.” I strolled away, leaving her to fume. I wasn’t expert in much, but I did know how to read maps, and I knew for a fact that on modern maps, this valley was drawn deeper and wider than it was on the vellum one. I could see the jagged strata a hundred feet above us, contrasting sharply with the time-worn rock higher up. An earthquake had cracked this place apart, likely in the same eruption that stopped the River Minor. Any structures from the 9th Centennial would’ve been rendered rubble.

 If they’d been built on the ground, that is. I had a hunch to look higher.