The Search for Ball Zero (11 page)

“
Yea it could.” Tony said.
He put out his hand and L gave him her phone. Tony ran under the
fence and downloaded the free app. He also started downloading a
few good pinball games, those are good offline too.

Tony sat on the other side of the fence in
awkward silence as the apps downloaded. He looked up at the group
like, “What?” When they finished, he crawled back under and they
were ready to go.

“
Good idea.”

They hiked for a few more hours. Trying to
stay close enough to the river, but

also trying to get to a high point. There
was no sign of any borders, there was a vast wilderness on this
side of the fence. They saw a few birds and insects.

“
I wonder if there are
real animals in here. Like bears and shit?” Eric thought

out loud.

“
Yea, and stuff we can eat
like rabbits.” Perry replied.

“
If there are bears,
they’ll need to eat something like rabbits.”, Tony put in his
2

cents.

“
They can eat you Fozzie.
You’d be like a chicken McNugget to a bear Foz!” Perry taunted the
animal, looking at her as he did. Fozzie looked back at him but
didn’t break her little butt bouncing stride. Tony looked at
Fozzie. He could tell by the bounce in her walk, she was having the
time of her life.

“
As long as the river has
fish, we’ll be good.”, Perry wasn’t joking for once.

They came across a nice flat area with good
rock cover from the wind; a good place to camp. They set up
camp.

“
I’m not setting up my
tent. Too much of a hassle.”, Tony said.

They got a fire going and sat around the
fire,. Their first night in the wilderness

inside a corporate owned forest. The first
night was uneventful.

Early in the morning Tony and L were woken
up by Perry coughing. He was

hitting a 4 foot bong.

“
You brought that?” L
said, wiping her eyes.

Trying to talk while coughing Perry replied
in a cloud of smoke, “Ice cold..”, He

coughed,”..river water.” He smiled, holding
up the bong, referring to the water he put it in. He sounded like
an old man, “So smoooth...” And then burst into lough coughing fit,
he stood up and danced.

Eric came back from the woods, he must’ve
been using the facilities. He

instinctively sat down by the fire pit and
reached for the bong, Perry instinctively passed it to him. Neither
of them looked at each other. They had bong passing down, second
nature, like two perfectly trained Olympic relay runners.

Eric pressed his face into the bong. Before
taking a hit, out of the side of his mouth he said,”First night
wasn’t so bad.” They all shruggingly agreed.

The hiked another day, heading North as far
as they knew. Later in the day, they set up camp, went fishing and
everyone caught something. They sat around the fire that night,
living off the bountiful land. There camp was high on the Western
side of a valley. The river wound through the bottom of the valley,
a little to their East.

Before it got dark, they all made a trek to
the peak. They noticed the hill or

mountain they were on went North for a long
while, as far as they could see. The river snaking it’s way
alongside it’s Eastern edge the whole way. Looking over the West of
the mountain was mostly flat forest. After looking for a while,
they all noticed a single path through the forest. The clearing
looked like a road, but there was no road. After some debating,
they concluded it must’ve been the path the first warstore took. It
went North as far as they could see also.

They had decided to keep heading North, not
exactly sure why. No one was sure if they should set up a camp and
stay somewhere or keep hiking, but for now they were going to keep
hiking.

That night, they sat around the campfire
talking about their fishing adventures. Tony caught Fozzie looking
off in the distance and noticed she was looking at something.

“
What is that?”, Tony
stood up to get a better look.

L was sitting with a good view and squinted,
then stood up. “Is that another

fire?”

“
Yea, see the smoke.” They
all noticed.

“
Ohh shit.”

“
Ohh shit.” Someone else
said, in a higher pitch, “What the fuck is that?”, Perry

was looking North in the valley. There was a
beam of light shining down into the trees, cruising over the
forest. It was too dark to see the flying object, but at first it
seemed like a police helicopter using its search light. But after
watching how it moved, it was too small and agile to be a
helicopter.

“
A drone.” Tony
realized.

“
It’s searching the
forest.”, Perry continued.

“
It’s heading right
towards that other fire.”, Eric noticed.

L quickly began kicking dirt over their
fire, extinguishing it.

“
Good idea.” Everyone
said.

Perry started getting his pack ready, even
though they were probably a few miles

away. The others watched the search light.
It zig zagged a bit, but it was on a collision course with the camp
fire on the other side of the valley.

Perry sang and finished with a flourish,
“Someone’s in trouuuubleeeee.”

The light swung by the edge of the camp
fire, and then the drone quickly stopped moving and focused the
search light on the camp. A small red light turned on and began to
circle on the drone, like a red-only police siren lamp. The group
was too far away to hear or see the details of what happened, but
suddenly the camp fire seemed to ignite, catching the surrounding
trees on fire. For a second the shape of a person stood out,
because it was on fire. The flaming person ran under some trees and
disappeared. Another flaming human silhouette ran into view, it
tumbled over and fell motionless into the dirt. The drone sat
motionless, hovering over the campfire.

A few moments later, two more search lights
slid over the horizon of the treeline. They were heading straight
towards the former camp fire, which was now a mini forest fire.

“
Backup.”, Eric
noted.

The first drone hovered silently, red siren
spinning slowly. Just as the other two

neared it, the siren turned off. For a
second, they all hovered near each other, no doubt exchanging
information, a forest fire growing underneath them.

“
That fire is getting out
of control.” Tony thought out loud.”I wonder if we should
move.”

The drones all turned off their search
lights. A few seconds later they spread out

and began shooting out a white spray over
the fire area.

“
Holy shit, they’re
putting out the fire.” They sprayed a bit here and there
and

before long the growing fire was no more.
The two backup drones kept their lights off, turned back and
silently glided North. The first drone turned on it’s search light
and resumed searching the forest.

“
That’s not good.”, Tony
stated obviously.

“
Not good at all.”, Perry
agreed.

“
It might not be good for
our health to be on this side the fence.” Eric added.

They all were staring at the search light,
it was combing the forest, searching

every part methodically. It turned.

“
It’s coming this way.”, L
projected. It kind of adjusted it’s trajectory and did seem to be
headed towards them now. They all looked intently.

“
It is!”

Everyone started helping cover all traces of
a fire and camp. Eric was quickly in

a bush with his pack, Perry bounded into a
short, but very bushy tree. L pointed towards a rock grouping up
the hill a few meters. L, Tony and Fozzie ran for it. There was a
small cave, the 3 of them could hide deep enough to not be seen,
they crammed in.

The search light seemed to be making a
beeline straight for their campsite. It

menacingly and quietly surfed up the hill at
their location. The search light was still scanning back and
forth.

Perry looked back from watching the search
light and saw the bong sitting out in

the open, in the middle of the camp. He made
a sound, like a grunt, sigh and “Fuck” all at once. Everyone heard
and noticed what he was looking at. Perry looked like he was going
to jump down and try to run and grab it, he hesitated. L waved him
off. Suddenly, it was too late, it was on top of them.

The light stopped short of the campsite. It
scanned a few trees right near Perry, the scanning approached his
tree. He wasn’t hidden particularly well, he crunched up into a
ball as the light slid over the tree he was in. The light didn’t
hesitate. It must’ve not seen him. Same with Eric.

Then the search light saw the bong. It
froze. The little red light began spinning. Everyone’s heart
dropped. Perry, Eric and Tony had seen trouble with cops before,
their plan was always to scatter. The thought was “They can’t catch
us all.” And when their group was at full capacity, they’d have
Juicy, and he was the slowest. This time they didn’t have Juicy.
They didn’t have anywhere safe to go, no predetermined meet up
point. They were days deep in the middle of the Elohssa Corporation
forest. They couldn’t even call the cops to help.

Tony thought, “We didn’t plan this good
enough. We’re fucked.” As kids, when they didn’t plan well enough,
the cops caught them and brought them home, it was all a learning
experience. This time, it looked like they were going to be burned
alive, not a good learning experience.

Tony was holding Fozzie’s collar, he handed
her to L, scooted up and gave her

a look. The look said, “If this goes bad,
you stay here I’ll take off and distract them.” He crouched like he
was ready to take off running.

L looked back at him. her look saying,
“No.”

The two backup drones appeared and began
scanning the area. The search light went over the rock formation L
and Tony were hiding in. It stopped. Tony and L held their breath,
Fozzie didn’t. It scanned back and forth again.

The three drones met up over the campsite,
hovering in a little huddle, 20 or 30 feet above it. Without
warning, a muffled zipping sound and the ground around the bong
exploded. Dirt kicked up and created a cloud of smoke. A few pieces
of glass dinged off of rocks. Perry grimaced at the pain of his now
only bong being destroyed. “Goodbye old friend, thanks for all the
fish!”, He thought.

The two backup drones silently left again.
The search drone’s red light turned

off and stopped spinning. It took off,
search light waving back and forth in front of it.

Tony popped his head out and watched it
leave. Once it was far enough away Eric began appearing from the
bush. Perry fell out of the tree with a thud, he bounced up, arms
flailing and ran to where the bong once was. “Awww, man!” It was
destroyed.

“
That was too close.”,
Tony thought out loud.

“
Yea way to close. We
didn’t plan for shit like this.”, L chimed in.

Eric was pacing back and forth, thinking
deeply, “We gotta bail. Fuck this place. We didn’t almost get
arrested, we almost got burned alive. Flying murderous drone
motherfuckuing fire fighters, warstores, not a sign of life around
besides us! And now our bong is gone!! That’s just too much.”

Perry couldn’t resist, in a panicked but
joking voice he did his best Bill Paxton impression, “That’s it
man. Game over, man! Game over! What the fuck are we gonna do now?
What are we gonna do!?”

Tony continued as Burke,”Maybe we could
build a fire, sing a couple of songs. Why don’t we try that.”

“
Are you fucking serious?”
Eric wasn’t laughing. “You guys can joke about

that right now?! I just saw my life flash
before my eyes.”

No more fire tonight. The rest of the night
they talked by the moonlight.

“
In the morning, let’s go
see that other camp they hit.” L said.

“
Good idea.” Perry
agreed.

“
We need to be more
careful.” Tony said the moonlight lighting his face in an eerie
way,”Like in D&D, we can’t all go to sleep with those things
flying around. We need to set up a watch.” He continued, “We need
to have a plan, in case shit hits the fan.”

“
Yea, like how we’d all
meet up behind Treetop after a job.” Eric remembered.

I’d say we meet at the hole in the fence,
but that’s so far away now.” Tony

thought out loud.

“
What about here?” L
injected.

“
Yea, we’ve all been here.
It’s kind of near the top of this hill. You can see that

little rock formation from all around.”
Perry agreed.

“
Ok.” agreed the
chorus.

“
Camp rock.” L named
it.

Perry laughed, “Camp rawk!” He growled,
flashing the devil horns.

The morning was uneventful. They all woke
up with a newfound sense of alertness. They weren’t just out hiking
and camping in the forest anymore. The stakes were raised.

They headed towards the other side of the
valley to survey the campsite they saw get torched.

“
I say we go back.” Eric
stated. “What are we even doing here?”

Perry countered, “Go back to what? Valley
Forest and live with masses?”

“
Yea, with real food,
girls, drugs, tv and you know, like, society.” Eric
said.

“
Yea, then we can all get
ICs, become Ads ourself and then we can die at a warstore sale
buying a bunch of rainbow dildos!? Fuck that.”