Dust Callers

My ma always told me that the floating cities had risen from the ground just before the oceans dried and all the green on the planet died. Squinting against the sun as I turned my face skywards, the large glittering buildings loomed over us like a foreboding truth. For twenty some odd years, this had been my view as I looked to the sky. Whether it be at night to try and steal a glimpse of the stars, or during the day, the sun glaring against the glass and being an overall distraction from the desolate waste all around us.

Dust kicked up wildly around my boots as I trudged down the makeshift street that led between the rickety buildings that had hastily been thrown together from old wood and large pieces of sheet metal. Our community was humble and small, helping each other out the best we could despite regular human nature to do what you can to survive and trample those in your way.

“Jupiter!” A hearty voice called as I had passed by the open doorway of our smithy.

The man was truly as large as a bear, but when he smiled it held the warmth and kindness hard to come by with the world as it is. He’d been lucky to already know the skill of metal working when the floating cities had lifted and the water dried from the planet, but his family had been killed when the initial panic had struck the overpopulated town where they had once lived. He had actually been the one to found this small little community of neutrals and gave us all a home and work when things looked their worst. Ma had come to him pregnant and on her death bed apparently, and he hadn’t hesitated to give her a portion of his water ration and a home to call her own here.

“Garreth!” I called back, my voice cracking gently from the dry air.

Pulling down my shemagh that covered up over my nose to protect me against the dust of our wasteland, I approached the open doorway, smiling easily at the large man who had always been like a father to me, in the absence of my real father of course.

“I’ve got that locket of yours here. All fixed and should hold up a little better against the elements now.” The tanned and scarred skin of his hands held the locket out as if it was a precious child.

Placing my left hand over my heart as I took in the appearance of the heart shaped locket I had known since I was young, I almost cried to see it renewed with Garreth’s masterful hands. But in the world we live in, you can’t afford to waste any water in your body, not even your tears. Taking it from him gently, I easily clasped it back around my neck that had felt incredibly naked without it during its absence.

“Thank you Garreth. Here, like I told you, a whole ration of water for your work.” Pulling an old and beat up looking canteen from the belt I wore as a sash across my body, handed the cool metal over to him, heavy from the water.

His kind and dark eyes looked me over with his obvious hesitation in taking the water from me. He knew how much we all worked to earn the water from the floating cities. If you pleased the Collectors, then they would share a small portion of their water, but if you had nothing to offer them, then you went without.

“Please.” I smiled my best smile at him, while giving the canteen a small shake in his direction. My ma always told me I’d finally attract a good man if I smiled more. Yeah right.

A heavy sigh finally pulled from his lips as his shoulders slumped forward a bit, he was finally giving in to my never ending charm, or so I like to tell myself. Taking the canteen from my hand gently, he just eyed me before shaking his head and turning away from me. I know how much it hurts him to take water from the people of our community. He was for all intent and purpose the head of our neutral little encampment. He helped protect us against raiders, but also negotiated dealings with the Collectors and those within the floating cities. Though he’ll swear up and down he’s never set foot up there or seen any of their faces. None of us really have actually.

“Thanks again Garreth! I’ll tell Ma you said hi!” I turned with a laugh as I made my way out of his little smithy building, pulling my shemagh back up and over my face, making my way back down the single street that our buildings resided on.

Making my way down and away from the buildings and the few people who moved in and out between them, moving supplies and bracing the buildings against any oncoming dust storms, I faced the open and barren expanse before me. Pulling a pair of goggles down over my eyes, I toed my boots into the dirt gently before continuing further into the wastes. I’m what the older folks liked to call a Dust Caller. It was one of the only jobs that the floating cities paid us for. Despite their ability to control the water supply and grow actual food there, their cities were not entirely protected against the savage sandstorms that would wreak havoc across the wastes. A wall that reached even the bases and sometimes higher of those floating cities. It was a Dust Caller’s job to call out a war like cry and light a torch to alert those in the floating cities. No one had ever seen or heard of how they managed to protect themselves against the storms, but that’s all they did. They offered no assistance to us down here bearing the brunt of it in our tiny little shacks made of anything we could haul away from the old cities.

I made my approach to a small structure pretty far outside the protection of my community and squatted down to move inside of it. Dusting off the loose sand from the floor of the structure, there was a small latch that led to a small underground storage space. It held mostly ammunition and a few guns we had managed to collect and recover. I had managed to score some of the better ones for myself after taking them off some raiders before others got to them. Pulling a long rifle-like gun out of the cellar space, mostly used for the scope attached to it, I slung it’s belt across my shoulder and closed the hatch, exiting the small structure to head towards the torch. As a Dust Caller, it was pretty important to have a way to protect yourself alone out in the wastes. Whatever did manage to survive, was nasty and one hundred percent going to try and eat you if you gave it a chance, and if animals or raiders didn’t kill ya, you had to worry about the dust storms you were watching for. The torch you had to light to warn the cities wasn’t just any ‘ol torch. It was a fifty foot tower one had to climb by hand and sit upon while looking in every single direction. If you’re lucky and no dust storms come by the next change of the Dust Caller, things are pretty simple. But sometimes you aren’t that lucky. If you do have to call a dust storm, you better pray you see it quick and are even faster at getting off the tower after lighting it. It’s why a Dust Caller is the most dangerous job that one in the community could have, but I had willingly raised my hand to do it. It was the easiest and most sure fire way to get water, and as the youngest there, I felt it was my job to also notify everyone who lived around me as well as to what was coming so they could bunker down and face the storm.

It was never easy for us, we normally always lost one of the older folks to the storm, we even had some children a few years ago go completely missing from a storm. It was always a hard loss to bear, but we tried to move on the best we could. Sighing gently, I looked up at the foreboding structure that was the torch. Gripping onto the metal, I scaled up the tower with a knowing ease, avoiding the spaces that I knew were weak, easily finding the perch to sit upon and watch. There really wasn’t a whole lot to look at while you were up there waiting, everything on the ground was just dirt, a solid color of rustic orange that shifted in the wind, my own long hair whipping around me. This time around, I swore I saw something that danced around in the sky, a long ribbon like tail trailing from it as it danced around. I think my Ma had described something like that before when I was young and we had bunkered down in Garreth’s home during a dust storm. She had called it a ‘kite’. She said kids and even some adults used to fly them for fun in high winds to see how high they could get them. It would make sense that the floating city kids would have something like that, without a care in the world, playing on the last patches of green.

A blast of particularly gritty hot air pushed against the bare skin of my upper arms and shoulder, drawing my attention away from the floating city and towards the wastes around me.

“Not good.” Muttering out to myself, I quickly re-attach the scope to the gun and jump to my feet on the perch, letting out a loud trilling whooping sound that carried loudly over the flat sands, doing this a few times, I turned and grabbed the flint stone kept at the perch to ignite it. Striking the fire quickly, I paused for a moment to make sure it would fully light, we had lost a Dust Caller before due to the torch not lighting, so it had made me highly cautious. Scaling down the structure, I started to run. It wasn’t too close, but they moved fast, and I wouldn’t have the time to make it back to the community. I knew the small structure that held the small cellar that contained the guns was the perfect place to keep safe while waiting for it to pass. As I ran I could hear something, screaming, either in fright or in pain, I wasn’t entirely sure, but I couldn’t look, or I’d lose momentum in my run. But the screams became desperate, trying hard to call to me. I finally risked a peek behind me. I never expected to see another person out here being chased down by the dust storm, especially someone so clean looking. Arms waving wildly at me, trying to get me to help them maybe, I bit my lip in thought before pointing to the small structure, hoping they’d follow me there. Sliding around the side of the far wall of it, I ducked in and quickly put the gun away. I waited to see if the person or the dust storm would appear first. Quietly hoping the person would make it, I tucked myself into the back corner, bracing the wall before I heard a thump on the wall, then a large body managed to wiggle into the building a few moments before the wind pushed hard against the structure. Turning to face the clean face of the other person who’d been out there, I came face to face with a man who clearly, had never spent a day in the wastes.