Desuetude

By NTW

As a hunter, Val is an elite in her field. The cities need to expand. The wilderness and animals are hostile to human life. Val's job is to go in and eliminate the dangerous beasts.

Technological selection is coming. There is only so much land left. Where there were once vast open spaces, there are now never-ending streets. Where there was once plant life, there are now factories and rows of buildings. Progress knows no mercy.

Val is aware of this. She has become a foreigner in her own homeland. Her hunting profession is dying out. Val is struggling to find her place in the new world, but what can one person do in a society that has forgotten them?

Desuetude is the exciting new literary sci-fi from Nicholas "Tac" Whitcomb.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Apr 17, 2024
• ISBN: 9781733110167

NTW

NTW is a writer and novelist. Most evenings, after he gets home from work, he spends his time writing out the tales in his noggin. His body of works is still continuing to grow. NTW creates horror, fantasy, and sci-fi books, or short stories. Gardening, reading, enjoying the great outdoors, bowling, and playing video games are his hobbies when not writing.

Book preview

Reflections

It’s funny how someone won’t realize the destiny of their actions until it’s too late. Often we just follow the path before us, like we’ve always done, and only stop to think about it once we run out of road. That’s where I am, at the end of the road. I sit here with my detonator in hand. I reflect on the recent weeks and how I ended up here.

Same Old Song

The cartridge casings were still smoking. Primer still singed the air. I watched the crustacean’s last throes in the water on the edge of that lake. A massive brown tail coated in rough nobs thrashed. Its shell was a few inches thick. I closed my eyes for a second and stepped back. The water’s thrashing refocused my attention.

The crustacean’s black eyes were lifeless, but its four pinchers hungered. They snapped about twenty feet away from me as I watched. Their vigor slowed. Their crushing grasp weakened. In that dense copse around the clear water, I alone watched its final moments.

Once I was truly in solitude, I stooped by a detached pond nearby and opened my rugged backpack. From its interior, I pulled out a thermos in my gloved hand. I filled it with the clear and untainted water. Stowing it away, I turned to the woods, the thorny trees. Their long leaves rattled in the winds and revealed their white and black bark in the sun.

Just past them was a series of construction cranes that loomed over their existence. Beyond that was a dense smog obscuring city spires. Even in daylight, their neon lights cut through the haze. I looked behind me and then around. It was the same on all sizes. Only the construction cranes were missing from the other portions of the surrounding cities.

My boots followed the path ahead, and away from the lake, of their own accord. It was a slow hour uphill until the trees finally broke, literally. A camp had been hewn out of the forest with chainsaw and cumbersome machinery.

Workers gazed at me in their orange CH Co. jumpsuits. As I neared, they gave me a wide berth and leery stares. Fuck them.

Through their parting, I was headed straight to the foreman’s portable. It was a sleek steel thing with pitch black rubber wheels. The tall foreman, dressed in a brown suit with a pine tree lapel pin, walked from the air-conditioned trailer. I stood in the swirling mix of machinery and workers while he looked right at me. It felt like through me.

Good work. He patted my shoulder.

I nodded slowly as I rubbed dirt off my face with my gloved hand.

He smiled like he wanted approval. Your usual excellence. With a practiced motion, he clicked open a silver plastic briefcase cradled in both hands. Here you are. He dug inside and pulled out a thin plastic stick with an encoded microchip and a credit display.

I took it reflexively and jammed it into my LBV vest pocket. I nodded again and started to walk away toward a landing helicopter that had just set down in the nearby clearing. The crew was unloading both personal things and demolition equipment from it.

Hey! I heard him yell from behind me.

I looked over my shoulder at him. What?

We’ll watch-talk you. Another one might be coming up soon.

At the helicopter, I threw my field pack inside along with my rifle and sat down in a harness seat. The blades whirred faster. Everything shook, and yet it was nearly silent. The interior was lustrous, just like they liked it, but the outside of the aircraft was uninspired gray. Inside were white leather seats, onboard device chargers, and even heated arm rests.

Through the thick plastic window, I watched as the world slipped away, lower and lower. The mountains, formed of granite and reddish soil, were curled into long knifelike points around the foliage. The rock looked hostile and prepared to push any intruders out.

The entire valley was maybe only five miles square. As its edges vanished in the florescent bloom of the city, glowing lights in the forever city dotted nearly every inch which made it look like a beacon that shined into space. Corporate buildings – squared, angled, and forcefully customized – blotted out the canyon with their uninspired designs and sheer numbers. The wilds seemed to fight against the cities, like a cancer, like a cure.

The helicopter moved over the city. Below were streets packed with cars, train-buses, motorized personal devices, and pedestrians. It was hard to make it all out through the thick brown smog, but they all hustled and jumbled over each other at every intersection.

It was twenty minutes to the airport. Thankfully the pilot didn’t say a word. With an unceremonious thump, the copter set down on a small secondary tarmac. I unbuckled and lurched out of my seat. My legs were sore. Too much crouching and waiting on the last outing. Opening my pack revealed my rifle bag inside. I folded it out and stowed my firearm. I then made for the flight terminal.

There wasn’t a need for me to cross security, as I was already on the inside. My flight from here, Cody, Wyoming, to my home in Sioux City, Iowa, was on schedule. I went to the kiosk. It had a smiley face on it. I stared at my dirty reflection. I looked like a half-buried corpse that someone was smirking about. I looked past the thing.

Behind it was a woman. Her head was down. I tapped loudly on the counter. She looked up with vacant eyes under long black bangs. I handed her my paper boarding pass. She looked at in in confusion. I walked away.

Tiredly, I sat down in a hard plastic and stain resistant terminal seat near my boarding gate. From a side pouch on my field pack, I drew out one of my many steel water bottles. Taking long sips, I watched and waited.

It was strangely hushed. There were probably two hundred fifty people on my flight, but not one of them spoke. Some of their faces glowed with their feeder’s screen as they looked at them in their palms. More had their feeder’s wireless and square shaped vid-visors hung over their eyes and nose. Others had their privacy tint on. I couldn’t see any irises through the visors, only the reflection of watch-talks and movies.

Some of them poked or swiped the air in front of them, browsing options or playing a game. I watched out the window at the dark sky.

The flight was called to board on a robotic loud speaker. I shuffled into line. We crept forward like a blind snake coiling into the plane. I kept my pack in the overhead storage and gun next to me. One hand was on it at all times. All of the plane’s warning signs and directions, or entertainment, were digital. I couldn’t see them. The chilly controlled climate made it feel tomb-like. Luckily, it would only be a thirty minute flight on a stream-jet.

With a deep exhale, I sat down and I focused out my window’s fuzzy plastic glass. The plane next to us had a green glossy exterior. Its form was just like everything else, smooth – forcefully smooth. It was created with a low profile, alloy folding wings, and a girthy cabin.

After a quiet take off, the stewardess walked the aisle in her green elastic and form-fitting dress. She handed out drinks using her vid-visor for orders. The other passengers had already placed their requests through AR. I started to raise my hand, but thought better of it. Last time things got confusing when I verbally requested some water. Turning my head back to the obscured window, I waited for the flight to end. It was easier to be overlooked than causing a ruckus by ordering the old way.

When the plane landed, I hustled out and past the slow-moving mob from the aircraft’s belly. A new crowd then swarmed over me in the terminals and lobby. They huddled around me stepping on the glossy tiled walkways between the neon