Free 1/2986 by Annelie Wendeberg

shoulders sag and I inspect the dirt under my fingernails. ‘What are Sequencers really doing?’
    ‘Trying to keep humanity alive, but it gets harder every year.’
    ‘Why does it get harder?’ I ask.
    ‘You’ll know once you are an apprentice.’
    ‘The time…the ten or fifteen years for the lowlands to be safe again, is that…’
    ‘The time we have left, yes.’

    ———

    Runner is lying at the base of a beech tree, half rolled up in his sleeping bag. I sit close by, reading and picking the soft innards out of the loaf of bread he’s brought, but I’m barely able to contain my hunger for knowledge. I can’t believe that I actually want to read more books. He told me to be patient, but I’ve never been more impatient than today.
    Before he dozed off, he asked me how I can sleep on the forest floor all by myself while that lynx is in the area. I’ve never heard of a lynx here, but Runner is certain he’s seen footprints.  
    He had little sleep in the past four days while keeping an eye on me. I felt ashamed when he told me this, but what choice did I have? I don’t own a fancy tent like the one he has, one that can be hung between trees, far enough from anything that wants to take a bite off me. He calls the thing a hammock and it has room for two. He also says we’ll share it whenever we’re travelling together.  
    Since then, goosebumps scuttle up and down my back. I’m thinking of the Old Geezer who died a few months ago, but not because people lynched him. He simply fell down dead. Probably drank too much. Everybody knew what he did to little boys. Or maybe they suspected it and it was too horrible to ask questions or point fingers. Instead, it was better to say nothing. In third grade, Marreesh often had problems sitting on his bum. No one talked about it. I didn’t either. I had no clue what I could say. “Are you okay?” would be stupid. “Did someone stick something in your arse?” would be outright…impossible. So I settled on “Hey.” Later, because Marreesh flinched every time I approached him, I stopped trying. Everybody stopped talking to him. A wall of silence. There are a lot of people on this side of the wall. On the other side, you are alone.
    I watch Runner snore softly. I know nothing about this stranger and I’m supposed to travel with him, sleep in a small tent with him, share food with him, and even my thoughts. I need a weapon, something more useful than this pathetic pocket knife of mine. And I need to be better prepared for our next trip, should there ever be one.
    I’ve never thought about a Sequencer’s life. Cacho appeared and disappeared, leaving behind a whiff of magic. Some people gaped when he marched along the main street into our village. Everyone believes Sequencers are wealthy, but Runner claims that all he owns is in his backpack. The silvery machine, the clothes he wears — plus four more sets packed — his ground pad and his sleeping bag, a pot, a water canteen, two knives, a rifle, the hammock tent, and three books. I haven’t seen it all yet, but there can’t be that much more. He has to have a place where he lives, where his family lives, and where he stores stuff like winter clothes. Cacho didn’t show up in summer clothes at minus twenty degrees Celsius, either.
    When the sun begins to set, Runner cracks open an eye. ‘What time is it?’
    ‘Dinner time.’
    His “short nap” was several hours long, and he doesn’t look particularly fresh. Yet he jumps up, compresses the sleeping bag into a small roll, and quickly stuffs it into his backpack. ‘Come,’ he says and walks ahead.
    We hike to the reservoir, and on the way he points out traces of wild animals and explains their meaning. Feathers of a bird — plucked, not moulted — droppings and pellets of an owl that show where the nest is, scratches on the bark of trees, brushed-off rain droplets.
    When we reach the reservoir, he says that he needs to wash.
    That reminds me — my