episode 00

Long-Distance Strider

Tak hopped across a meandering trickle of petrol without losing his stride, his rhythm. He was one with this landscape. This lonely, forgotten world of rusted metal misanthropes.

Tak was a long-distance strider and he ran because he was designed to do so. Though he was presently alone, there would be others out there. Others, with different abilities, different strengths and weaknesses. Tak was a strider, and so he ran.

Long-distant striders never thought about the minutia of life – the dirt and filth of the trail, the chore of breathing in and out, the primitive longing for rest and a sip of something cool – no, nothing short of the finish line, in fact; long-distant thoughts were the rule. Tak pondered life’s bigger questions from time to time, sure, but never the little things.

But just now, his thoughts began slipping away from the familiar, far-away thoughts of his kind. He found himself pondering the little things around him. Nothing important. A broken circuit board, red and blue and black wires twisted around, laying abandoned in the dust – like everything else around him – and Tak found himself observing the details of the thing, as if any of it mattered. Nothing important, but his mind couldn’t stop processing these little things. As if a pin-sized hole had suddenly opened up in this aging metal shell of his, releasing particles of data into the atmosphere around him – a binary vapor of ones and zeros, meaning nothing to the world around him. Tak blinked his eyes – still running evenly ahead – he was amazed at how his mind was wandering this evening. He would need to talk to The Leader about this. Quite irregular. It was beginning to bother him.

Tak came to a sudden stop. The red dust he had disturbed floated on ahead of him [Tak imagined it filled with ones and zeros]. He listened to the silence of the planet around him. “Worrisome,” he thought.

He had followed the Transmission since he left Base Camp, at the edge of the desert. “For it to go silent now: worrisome.” The Transmission itself was a series of radio beacons, designed for desert navigation. And without the Transmission to guide him . . .

Tak scanned the horizon for any landmarks he could use for navigation. “If only I were a tracker,” he thought, “Trackers don’t get lost. Ever.” Not that he knew anything about trackers – Tak had never met a tracker, nor would meeting one do him any good in his current situation. These were some of the thoughts that ran through his head.

Long-distant striders were not much good without coordinates to follow, or at least a known direction to travel. He could keep going in the same direction, and perhaps that would be best. But without the Transmission to guide him . . .

Tak was lost. The Leed-Star began slipping deftly behind the distant hills, leaving long purple shadows in its wake. The second sun would soon follow, leaving a bitter-cold, dangerous night. He would need to find shelter soon before the second-setting. Tak felt the air around him turning deathly cold. The message he was carrying could be of vital importance, considering the timing of it. He set about preparing for the long night ahead, trying to keep his mind on that potential importance, trying his best not to think about the little things. Anyway, here he was. Lost in the wilderness. A long-distance strider.