Alone in the Crowd (The Chronicles of Anna Foster Book 3) Read Online Free PDF Page B

foraging. I went a little early this morning.”
    “Foraging?” she continued on her tirade. “That’s fine, but you could have at least left me a note or something!”
    He narrowed his eyes. “I did.”
    “You did? Where is it?”
    As he was about to answer, Jason thought he heard snickering somewhere behind him, but a quick glance revealed nobody there. Turning back to the matter at hand, he furrowed his brow as he replayed the events of the early morning after such a restless night. He had felt rather tired while he had showered and dressed. Had he left her a message?
    Before he could answer, another voice interrupted, “This channel is to be used for official discussions only. If you wish to continue, please move your conversation to a private channel.”
    “Look, Catherine,” Jason suggested diplomatically. “We’ll talk about it at lunch. I have to get back to work.”
    After a second, she replied after an audible sigh, “Fine. At lunch.”
    He nodded and closed the channel before turning and continuing his hike along the river, shaking his head at first while he mulled the incident over in his mind.
    As he moved down the river, Jason kept a careful eye open, taking in the sights that nature had to offer while searching for new sources of food. Although he found several berry-producing bushes, only two of them proved to be edible to humans. Out of those two, the dark blue ones tasted incredibly sweet, while the deep red ones made his lips pucker after sampling a couple. Nevertheless, he harvested several of each, bagged them, and stored them in his backpack before logging the location and moving on.
    About an hour later after a slow but steady search along the riverbanks, Jason came to an odd sight that made him doubt his sanity and his sobriety. On the far bank, near a set of rapids that traversed the river about a hundred meters further downstream from his location, appeared to be something that looked like a water wheel. Although it was not a water wheel in the traditional sense, it appeared to work in much the same fashion.
    Jason’s first thought was to report the find in to the colony. As he contemplated doing so, memories of the previous day’s events involving the pyramid came back to him. Hoping to avoid the embarrassment he might experience by calling attention to himself again, he decided to investigate further before saying anything.
    Daring to get a closer look, Jason ventured closer to the wheel. Reaching a spot across the river from it, he stopped to examine it. Built of weather-beaten wood with eight troughs fastened to a rough, square frame, the wheel turned with the tide of the river and spilled the water it picked up into some sort of V-shaped half-pipe suspended within the branches of the trees lining the river. From his viewpoint, the half-pipe disappeared into the woods, and he could not tell where it led.
    Jason stopped and listened to his surroundings but only heard the wind blowing through the trees, the breaking of the water against the rocks ahead, and the occasional squeak from the water wheel. Intrigued, he crossed the river, stepping across the rocks as if he walked a high wire, approached the old-tech device, and watched it turn on its spindle, which was secured to a large tree.
    A while later, a strange odor assaulted his nostrils. He wrinkled his face and looked around for the source. Resting against a tree several meters past the wheel, Jason found another strange contraption. It looked like a few boards had been nailed together with another wooden plank on top of it. It struck him as odd that the plank on top was sharpened and bloody on one side. The blood appeared to be the source of the scent, and he turned away as his stomach began to churn from the disgusting sight.
    As he turned away, Jason noticed a small group of trees growing a few meters further downstream. In particular, he noted the brownish-yellow fruit hanging from their branches. At first, he thought they