Chapter 8: Visiting Queland and Rahia

~~ April - Week 15 ~~

Kyle and Philip wanted to go to Queland.

They wanted to go look at one of the bombed cities were Kyle was getting one of the strange readings from. They decided that the as long as they were in their suits and stayed away from the higher radiation zone it would be safe.

Lee agreed it was worth doing and they should be safe enough. So, the exploring party went west. The spot Kyle had picked was the one furthest from the ice flows on the continent the locals called Queland.

It was a sad sight as they flew slowly over the bombed site and circled it so they could record what they were seeing. There was still enough left even after two-hundred and fifty years for them to work out that this had once been a thriving, relatively advanced city.

They could still discern were buildings had been, and some were still partially standing. Gary indicated what he believed was a rail system, like their monorails. They could also identify the once paved roads laid out in typical street patterns.

Rusty blobs, littered with what looked like pieces of a treated wood, dotted along the roads. DT reckoned they had been a sort of car. However, the centuries of wet and windy weather had not been kind to the remains of the once-proud city.

Numerous buildings in the central area had been many stories high going by the height of the grassed-over rubble and the odd spire of rock-walls. This indicated to the team that the people had used advanced building techniques.

The team all picked an area of town, and once the transporter was down, they went exploring.

Kyle and Philip wandered away from the others to a building, which was still mostly standing. It was further out of town on a small rise indicating it was once a prominent residence. Kyle’s funny reading was coming from the ruin.

The stone walls were very thick, and the top floor/ceiling was made of a cement type of material. The floor above was reduced to rubble and grass and not accessible anymore. The doors and windows were missing from the lower floor. The height of the door intrigued Kyle. It would have been barely 170cm tall. Even he had to bend his head to enter the dwelling.

There was a lot of dirt and plant matter on the floor that had blown in. Kyle moved through to another room that was surrounded by the other rooms in the dwelling. There was less trash in this room. Kyle noted one section of the wall seemed to have moved. It was jutting several centimetres away from the sidewall, so he went to examine it.

He soon realised it was a door and pulled on it. With Philips help, he was able to open the door. To their amazement, they found a similar set-up to what they had found in the other wizard’s home. The two men became very excited.

This time, Kyle didn’t touch the chemistry set. They also found boxes similar to the ones they had in the hold of the transporter. The difference was that someone had tried to prize the lid on the sealed box. Obviously, they hadn’t managed to get it open, but the join was covered in very faint chisel marks.

Other than the book box, not much else was of interest. This room wasn’t airtight, and most of what had been in here was now dust if it had not been made of a material that didn’t disintegrate quickly.

Not all of the books were in good condition either. Some had been left out on the bench, and the pages had degraded. Philip packed them in special boxes he had to preserve their condition.

Kyle went and grabbed the mini-loader and more preservation boxes for Philip. Once the books were taken care of, they put the boxes on the loader and took them to the transporter. The men were both pleased with their find.

Kyle and Phillip then wandered off to find Sean and Lee. They walked down a wide thoroughfare, and Philip indicated he wanted to look at one of the almost intact houses. It had the thick walls like the other house they had been in.

The men entered cautiously. The door had long since crumbled and only the rusty hinges were left. The entrance was littered with rubble and unrecognisable debris. As they moved further in the building, they found the kitchen.

Philip pointed out a door that was still in place. It was a stout wooden door with iron bands and studs, and it had warped into the door frame. The hasp and a lock were still in place. “A locked door, I wonder what treasures they hid behind it, Kyle?” Philip asked.

“I suppose the only way to find out is through the door,” Kyle answered with a grin.

They examined the door, and Kyle pulled on the lock. It must have been of poor quality as it broke in his hand. The hasp also fell away when he pulled on it. Unfortunately, the handle also was no match to brute force, and Kyle was left holding the remains.

“So, Professor, how do you propose we go forth?” Kyle said with a wry grin. The door had not moved at all.

Philip looked carefully at the frame. He pulled a short podgy bar from his backpack. He jammed it in between the frame and the wall and then levered it, against the wall. The Plaster started to crumble, and the frame groaned.

He moved the bar lower and tried again. The framed groaned some more. So, he went higher and then back to the middle. This time the frame gave up, and the whole door and the frame moved. He jammed the lever in harder and tried again.

This time the frame popped forward, and he had to step back as the door and frame crashed to the ground beside him. They had to wait a few moments to let the dust settle. Kyle looked at his air monitor. He showed it to Philip. “Lucky we are in sealed suits as that air is putrid.”

“Kyle? Are you and Philip okay?” Lee’s concerned voice came across the com.

“Yes, Lee. We are investigating a room that was locked. It looks like it leads to a cellar. We are in the big house on the east side that’s still mostly intact,” Kyle told her.

“Okay, we are heading your way now. Lee out,” she replied.

Kyle watched as Philip banged on the top step with his podgy bar. It was metallic and sounded solid. He cautiously stepped on it, and it held his weight. He shone his torch at the next step and taking hold of the rail on the wall, he tugged it. It was still solid and held, so he gingerly stepped down onto the next step.

Kyle stayed at the top and shone his torch down the stairs as he watched Philip progress. He noticed the steps were closer together than human stairs. Philip made it to the half-way landing and started down the next set of stairs. Only once he was at the bottom did Kyle follow. Kyle met Philip at the bottom, and the men shone their torches around the room.

The room was a bare 2m in height. A large bed took up most of the space in the alcove beside the staircase. Shackles on long slim chains hung at half metre intervals around the three walls that surrounded the bed. Attached between two of them was the remains of a small humanoid.

The wall opposite the bed was partitioned off by iron bars. Three 2m square cells took up that section of the cellar. Two cells held two bodies each and the third held one. Various implements that could be used for torture or by someone with an S&M fetish, decorated the third wall.

Kyle flashed his torch at the top of the walls and noted the high vents on the sidewall had been blocked by rubble and dirt. He then flicked his torch across the bodies. “The poor little bastards,” he said. “They were left here to die. Fuck, I hate paedophiles.”

Philip shone his torch on each corpse and moved from cell to cell then back to the bed. He said sadly, “I don’t think they were children, Kyle. I believe they were Pix bed slaves. Sparky said the Pix people are very short when compared to us.”

Phil looked at the bodies, “Even so, I don’t think they were treated well. The one on the bed suggests the master was interrupted in his sport. He probably intended to come back but wasn’t able to. Going by their mummified state, they have probably been here since the bombings.”

“Shit,” said Sean, causing Philip and Kyle to jump, as they hadn’t heard him come down the stairs. “A grizzly find, Kyle. I’ll go get some body-bags, so we can give them a decent burial.”

Sparky was very upset at seeing the bodies, and after confirming that they were Pix women, she left with Sean.

Philip jammed the podgy bar between the chains and broke them, and Kyle opened the doors to the cells. He moved over to one of the copses and noticed it had a strange bulge under the thin shift it still wore. He carefully moved the shift and realised the desiccated skin was dried over an unborn child.

Kyle had to stop himself from puking into his helmet and had to move away. Lee gently rubbed her cousin’s back and let him hug her as she understood how he felt.

Philip was a bit more used to long-dead bodies, so he continued exploring the cellar and found a large wooden chest located under the stairs. He opened the chest. It was filled with bags of what he assumed were coins and small bars of metal.

The bars were mostly bronze and silver, and two were of gold. He also found several ledgers. They were well preserved as the chest had sealed tight. They appeared to be diaries and accounts books. Phillip was delighted with this find as you can learn a lot about a society by how they kept accounts.

Sean came back with Gary. They sent Kyle to get the digger while the four of them carefully placed the bodies into the bags. It wasn’t a pleasant or easy job. The little bodies started crumbling as they tried to move them. They were so small they had to fold the bags in half. Sean and Gary started to carry the bags to the surface.

Philip would have liked to have kept the mother and child to be autopsied but had the feeling that Sparky, Lee and Kyle wouldn’t be happy with this suggestion, and he wisely didn’t approach the issue with them.

Kyle started digging a trench in the frozen soil near the ruin of the house, to place the bodies in. He couldn’t watch the others touch the bodies, and he was glad Lee had sent him outside. It hurt too much, and he wanted to cry, even though he didn’t know these people. He couldn’t reconcile with their senseless deaths.