Word Count: 8017

Apocalypse

            Considered unclean by many of the people at White River because she had been born of the wastes, Juana was often shunned.  However, since she had been officially adopted by one of the Elders, she was safe from most of the worst abuse that would have otherwise taken place. 

Juana knew her histories.   Like every child at White River, the Elders’ ancient discs had schooled her.  The history of the End Times had been a large part of their teachings.  Juana had spent more time with the collection of discs than any of the other children. 

Once the world was full of people.  There were too many people and not enough resources.  Land that had once grown crops to feed was covered in buildings full of hungry mouths.  Oil that had powered vehicles and made plastics became scarce. 

Countries and corporations waged wars over things they would need to survive.  Man-made plagues ran rampant, decimating populations worldwide.  Panic spurred the dying civilian population into anarchy in some places.  The first nuclear bombs were detonated in Metropolis, Texas.  No one was ever sure of exactly who was behind the bombings, and after retaliations and counter-strikes, few were alive who really cared.  Mushroom clouds sprang up and disappeared all over the world, leaving death in the air.

The initial bombs killed countless numbers of people with nuclear and thermal radiation alone.  When bombs were dropped from above, the electromagnetic pulse wiped out electricity within thousand-mile radiuses.  Those facing the blasts within a twenty-mile radius suffered flash blindness.  Along with flying debris, these things killed tens of thousands instantly, and many more as the days passed.  Those that could not drag themselves from the wreckage of civilization would die.  Those that escaped would not live long, healthy lives.

The only living beings that survived the black rain had been those quickly and properly sheltered, as well as the owners of gas masks.  During the last days of the war, those few untouched by the plagues were rioting and looting.  Army-Navy stores had been gutted and burned, all MREs and masks bloodied by fighting.

 Evacuating these monstrous cities and those that lay in the path of the black rain of fallout was impossible.  With no utilities and no transportation, there was no way out of the disaster areas.  There was no help from the outside world coming; government centers had been the most heavily and quickly bombed once the madness of war really began.  The President must not have escaped, or he would have already rebuilt his nation.   Uncle Sam could not help from his grave. 

The people had had some warning, however.  The Reign of Terror just after the turn of the 21^st century had prepared many Americans for the End Times.  Some, mostly the rich and paranoid, felt that the End was inevitable and began preparing generations in advance.  Money and high technology built vaults that could house hundreds for years.  There had been a huge fallout shelter near what was now Terrapin Station.  It was known as the Ark, and had housed many creatures other than humans within its climate-controlled depths.

However those with shelters dealt with their own problems.  Often shelters were unfinished or poorly constructed.  The plagues were carried inside, and other diseases that come along with a lack of fresh running water and sanitary provisions destroyed the populations of many shelters.  Food and medical supply shortages took their toll on others.  Human nature destroyed as well.  Madness, feuds, and the countless other reasons man commits murder took as many lives.

Others did not prepare shelters at all and left their lives in the hands of their One True God.  They called the final wars Apocalypse and the deaths of billions Rapture.  Those that survived called themselves the Unworthy.   Once the fallout settled, they made their home between the swamps that old-timers called Louisiana, and the wastelands that had once been known as Texas and Oklahoma. They and their offspring set up new churches, spreading the gospel of Jesus and the One True God.  They spoke of how the End would come again.  They spoke of being prepared to be saved.  When they swore, they invoked the Four Horsemen.  Juana had never met one of the Unworthy, but she was sure they would be just as uncomfortable to be around as the Dengari. 

Moretta

Moretta snuggled up to Juana in the ripening of dawn.  The pale girl was always warm beneath her blankets.  The air mattress squeaked in protest as they shifted their elbows and weight into more comfortable positions.

“We gotta go pick up the fare.”

“After the sun comes up, woman.”

“After coffee, too.”  Moretta liked the clean smell of Juana’s hair.  She hoped the sun took its time this morning.  The first birds were waking and beginning their morning songs, the crows loudest among the choir.  She actively tried to tune out the rising sun and the sounds it brought when she heard the distinctive sound of a tent being zippered open.

“Drek.  It snagged.”  Helen swore, and Moretta listened to her attempt to unsnarl the zipper.  Soon she would be stumbling around the campsite in her ridiculously high-heeled boots, knocking pans about in an attempt to make breakfast.  Moretta hoped there was some deer sausage left in the cooler.  What Helen usually rustled up for breakfast was almost always ugly, but it tasted good.

Moretta enjoyed the warmth and comfort of the bed for a few moments longer.  After a quick kiss and a squeeze, Moretta rolled over to get up.  She kept expecting it to be cold when she climbed out of bed; fall had started a week ago according to the Almanac.  But the morning was warm enough that she slid into her clothes without a shiver.  The sun was out of bed, but blanketed in clouds.  They had to break camp and pick up a fare.

“Let the air out, please.”  Juana yawned, and Moretta opened the valve at the foot of the bed, watching it deflate as she zippered the ten shut behind her.  Juana would be out in a few moments, and would start to store their bedding and break down the tent.  Moretta started working on getting coffee into her bloodstream. 

“Morning,” she said to Helen, filling her percolator at a water barrel. 

“Good morning!”  Helen was always strangely happy in the mornings.  She sparkled, Moretta thought.  It just was not right.  But she did okay with breakfast. 

Helen already had the fire burning again, consuming some pieces of hard wood that she had collected along the trails further southeast.  “We need to find a job down near Terrapin Station, Moretta.  It’s harvest time, you know.  We need to lay in supplies.  Winter is coming.”

“It sure as hell don’t feel like winter is coming.  It feels like summer is staying.   But you’re right, Helen.  We’ll get supplies soon.  I believe our next fare goes to Cicada, and that’s on the way to the Station.”

  “Heard last night that they got the rail through to Cicada.  Going to cut into our profits, boss?”  Billiam sat up from his bedroll near the cook fire.  Moretta had offered him a tent when he joined the outfit, but he preferred to sleep under the sky so long as it was not raining.  If the night started off clear and the next day started in rain, often as not he could be found snug and dry inside the four-door coach itself.

“Maybe not, Billy.  Think of all the fares that are going to need to be delivered to Cicada to get on the train.”

By the time the coffee was percolating, and Helen had most of breakfast done, Juana had the tent and bedding all rolled up and piled beside the coach, ready to be tucked into the proper lockers. 

“I’m going to check the hogs; I’ll be right back.”  Juana headed over to the corralled animals to give them their morning feed.  Moretta followed her, a cup steaming in her hands.

“You ever find what you were looking for yesterday?” Moretta asked once Helen and Billiam’s muted conversation was out of range.               

Juana scooped grain and pellet feed from a bucket and poured it into the pigs’ trough.  “No.  Does ‘Bert Pike’ mean anything to you?”

“Isn’t the road that intersects Main at the bricks called Albert Pike?”

“The one that heads south to the ruined fort?  I never noticed.  You are the navigator; you’re probably right.  Maybe some of the locals would know.”

Moretta sipped her coffee.  “Go ahead and check it out, if you want.  We don’t have to pick up the fare until noon.  Camp should be easy to bust up between the three of us.  You’ll need to go to the feed store, anyway.  I can harness these beasts.”

Prophet snuffled at Moretta’s bare brown toes as the other hogs swarmed greedily around the trough.  “I’ll be back in time to help you harness them,” Juana promised her.  “As long as we’re coming back this way soon.”

“We’ll probably be back this way after we get supplies from Terrapin Station.  It’s supposed to be autumn already.  We need winter supplies.  We’ve got to decide which relay station we’re going to winter at when the roads become impassible.”

“Would it be possible to winter here?”

“There’s no relay here, Juana.  The closest place with real accommodations for the pigs is at Luster.  Unless we just decided to build us a relay here.  I don’t think anyone would complain, especially if we built it out here in the ruins.  We could probably find everything we’d need out here too.  This is the second job we’ve had out here this season, maybe Center City wants an Arroyo relay station out here.”

“The Dragon would have to okay it though, wouldn’t he?”  Juana asked.

Moretta grinned and winked.  “That’s the clincher.  I’ll post the message at Luster on our way to take today’s fare to Cicada.  Maybe the Dragon’ll get back with us sometime before winter starts.”

Juana snorted.  “If he doesn’t just recall us all to headquarters to fire us and take the coach.”

“That would be bad business.  I guarantee we turn in more money than any other coach on his line.  That’s why I think he might let us set up a relay here.  Besides, Center City is a booming city for the wastes.  Everyone west of here comes into town for supplies.  It’s the only place in the wastes with edible food.  We need a relay here.  They need a relay here.  While you’re out looking for Bert Pike, I think I’m going to the town hall and find out who’s really in charge of trade here.  The more information I can give the Dragon, the happier he’ll be.”

Juana

Downtown Center City’s roads were paved in brick.  There was an intersection on Main Street.  East the bricks extended a couple hundred yards down Pine Street.  To the west, the bricks lasted just beyond the end of a fenced park on Albert Pike Road.  Moretta, as usual, Juana thought, was right.  Fingering the napkin in her pocket, Juana walked to the gate of the park.  To the east she could see the cantina where she’d gotten Ishi’s message.  People were starting to wander up and down the garlanded streets.  Vendors had opened their stalls early, and the sage smell of cooking sausages mingled with the yeasty smell of spilled beer.  The festival was under way.  Juana wondered where the cart races would be held.  She wondered what sorts of animals would pull the carts.  She had seen a few zorses and mules from Terrapin Station strains that morning.   They were expensive; the people at the Station kept their breeding techniques secret. 

Their ancestors had built the Ark, and they had saved cattle, horses, donkeys, zebras, dogs, birds, and many other animals from the fallout and plagues.  It was their burden and their right to hold their secrets close, keeping the strains pure.  Over a few generations, the breeders at Terrapin Station had repopulated the woodlands west of their settlement.  The delta to their east yielded acre upon acre of rice, cotton, beans, corn, and hemp.  For every animal kept inside the Ark, there had been a plant or seed saved as well. 

Beyond the hopes of the builders, the woodlands had survived the fallout.  The heavy summer foliage had withstood the black rain while the pine thickets had withered and died.  The animal life in the forests had suffered from mutated viruses – man-made plagues that did not discriminate between animals and humans.  Some creatures had survived – the drone of seventeen-year cicadas greeted the first survivors as they left the Ark.  The trees themselves had survived; they were bearing fruits and nuts.   

Juana pushed through the gate.  It swung shut behind her on a well-oiled spring.  The crunch of her boots on the little gravel path and the sound of an angry mocking bird seemed louder than the gathering crowd.  In the shade beneath the biggest tree in Center City was a statue of a bearded man on a concrete plinth.  Juana wondered if it had always stood in the same spot, or if someone had moved it from the ruins after the war.  Vines of poison ivy obscured most of the plaque that identified the long-bearded man.  Juana had found Bert Pike.  Beneath his name, Albert Pike, were dates: 1809-1891.  She wondered if he was from before the war.  There was no calendar, and no one really kept up with year-dates except for the important ones like the Ice Winter or the Summer of Droughts.  The Almanac had its own calendar, and Juana wondered where these dates would be on it.  Beneath the old-style dates was a symbol unfamiliar to Juana, though she had seen the tools in the carpentry shop at White River.  It was a compass above and mirroring a setsquare.

After staring uselessly at Albert Pike’s whiskers for a few minutes, Juana took a look around the little park.  It was shaded and difficult to see the streets, though she could hear the festivalgoers.  There was a small caretaker’s lean-to against the wall of the brick building that made up the south edge of the park.  Juana could see where a lock was supposed to go on the lean-to’s door, but the rusty hasp was open.

            The door was warped and groaned on its hinges as Juana muscled it open.  Dust motes skirled through shafts of light from cracks along the walls and nail holes in the tin roof.  The floors were sandy and dry; doodlebugs had made their little pits.  As her pale eyes adjusted to the darkness of the shed, Juana began to be able to discern more than shapes and dust motes.  A jumble of long-handled tools leaned on one another in a corner, dried red clay dirtying the floor beneath them.  A long workbench was pushed against a door in the brick wall.  Dust was thick on trowels, tacks, flowerpots, seed packets and the other clutter on the bench, undisturbed except for the occasional mouse tracks and pellets.

            Juana sighed and looked hard at the door in the brick wall.  The door was old – grey paint peeling from grey wood.  There was no knob.  All Juana would have to do would be to pull out the table far enough to open the door.  Juana felt like an animal stealing bait from a trap. The things on the tabletop rattled and shook as she pushed one end through the sand.  The workbench had been holding the door shut.  It swung right open, gravity holding the door at a ninety-degree angle from the wall. 

A cinder block below the door served as a step into the building. Juana climbed inside, pausing with a hand on either side of the doorframe to get her equilibrium.  The cracked concrete floor was at an angle; she understood why the door hung the way it did.  The room the door had opened onto was a closet with a fun house floor.  On the far wall, Juana could make out a ladder shining in the darkness.         

Still leaning on the doorframe, Juana pulled a small case out of her satchel.  She thumbed it open and withdrew a fluid-filled vial as long as her palm was wide.  She removed a pellet from a compartment in the case and returned the case to her satchel.  She unscrewed the plasteel cap and dropped in the gel pellet.  After firmly replacing the cap, she shook the vial vigorously.  After a few seconds, the vial began to emit a bright phosphoresce.

Keeping one hand on the wall for support, Juana went over to the ladder and looked down the narrow shaft.  The shining steel rungs disappeared into darkness.  Juana dropped her vial light.  It bounced off the steps and walls several times before landing far below.  The reverberations made Juana wince.  She was not being very quiet.  If anyone was waiting down there for her, they knew she was on her way.  Juana stepped onto the ladder and started down the shaft.  She felt a little better when she realized she could lean back and rest against the wall if she needed to.  Juana did not mind tight spaces; quite the opposite, they made her feel relaxed.

After about ten minutes of climbing, the vial light was suddenly beneath Juana’s feet and the wall was disappearing behind her.  There was barely room to turn in the elbow of the shaft.  Juana clipped the light on a cord she wore around her neck and started forewarn, stooped over and crab walking.  Thankfully, the tunnel was shorter than the ladder and Juana found herself in front of a small blast door.  The bricks around it were the same color as the ones that paved the streets above.  The moment the compass and square symbol engraved in the door was visible in the phosphorescent murk, Juana knew that Albert Pike was a man from before the End Times. 

Juana opened an access panel beside the door and keyed in the four digits taped above the keypad.  She heard a hiss as the hatch released and the door rose on pneumatic lifts.  After taking the code-bearing scrap of paper, she wriggled through the blast door on her belly and pulled herself into a room walled in stainless steel.  Then she saw ducts leaving the low-ceilinged room.  When a fan kicked on in a passage to her right, Juana realized that she was inside an air system.  She tucked the vial light into her pocket.  Once her eyes began to adjust, she realized that she could see light coming from some of the ducts.  She chose the one closest to her left and found herself at a wall vent that needed a clean filter.  There was a latch to open the vent from the inside, and in moments Juana was standing in a kitchen blinking. 

“Oh dear.  A back door visitor.  Simply no one has come through the back door since Uncle Chester’s time.” 

Startled, Juana gaped at the man.  He looked to be just a little older than she was, with an unlined, narrow face, high cheekbones and dark eyes.  He was in a fuzzy robe, a bottle in one hand and a towel in the other.  Helen would kill for those shoes, Juana thought, eyeing the man’s clogs.  He seemed to be adept at carrying on a conversation with himself.  Juana glanced around the kitchen and saw no one else.

“We’re going to need another bottle of wine,” he declared and opened an upright electric cooler.  “Come on now, what’s you’re name?  Mine’s Edgerinn.”

“I’m Juana.”

“Juana.  That’s nice.  Has a bit of a Mexican feel to it, but that’s to be expected.  You gotta sister named Maria?”  He giggled and held a wine bottle in each hand.

“I don’t have any siblings.”

“Well, you must be here for a reason, Juana, or you wouldn’t have used the back entrance.  Let’s discuss it in the spa, shall we?  I was just headed there for my morning soak.  Get the door, won’t you Juana?”  Edgerinn nodded his head in the direction of the kitchen door.  Juana stepped through and held it open for the wine-laden man.

Quite baffled by her reception, Juana followed him through a couple of arch-ceilinged hallways, passing closed doors.  “I’m looking for a connection to the Link-Beam.”

“Link-Beam?  Hmm…  sounds like something in the terminal.  You know, we’re already right here anyway.  I’ll have my bath later.” Edgerinn flipped open a panel beside another door and punched in the same keycode Juana had used to access the blast door.  The door hissed open and revealed a room full of monitors, keypads, and electronics Juana had no names for.  Only two screens in the room were lit: the large central screen and a small one to the side.  Both showed the same image.

“The masons weren’t computer whizzes, but they could afford to hire them.  What they did know was how to build something that lasts hundreds of years.  A handful of the folks that live topside are descended from the original masons that built this vault.  Me, of course.  All of the caretakers have been descendants of the masons.  I’m actually the first one who wasn’t a member of their little organization.  Uncle Chester was the last one, I’m afraid.  And there just wasn’t anybody left who wanted the job, except me.  So here I am, taking care of all this as best as I can . . .”

Juana sat down before the smaller monitor and tried to access the system.  The setup was similar to the one at the White River Shelter, right down to the remote sensor below the screen.  The system had many programs installed, though they were extremely dated.  The antique googler worked fine for what Juana wanted.  She was searching to references of coordinates for the Link-Beam.

“Make yourself at home.  You need passkeys or anything and we’ll have to find the little black book.  Though I haven’t seen it in ages.  Don’t mind my babble.  You must understand that I don’t often get a real live person to talk to down here.”

So far Juana had only been asked for one password.  The door code worked fine.  It was easy to remember and seemed to have unlocked ninety-eight percent of the system’s programs already.

“Well, drek.”  Juana had found what she wanted.  She had tried to access the files but could not. 

Edgerrin grunted as he uncorked one of the wine bottles.  “Have you found what you were looking for?”  He asked as he poured wine into two glasses.

“Yes, I think I have, but I can’t find a program to read the file.  What do you have that will decode an .xtc file?”

“An .xtc file?  I’ve never heard of such a thing.” He extended a shallowly filled glass of wine to her.  “Try this.  I know they’re having that awful beer festival up there, and this is my way to protest it.”

Juana accepted the proffered glass and took a sip.  She smelled it before she tasted it and it was thick in her nose and wild.  It was good.  It was better than Helen’s breakfasts.  “This does beat the stuff at the cantina.”  

She took another sip and frowned at the screen before her.  “I’ve never heard of an .xtc file either.  Is there any way we can copy this to some sort of disk?  A memory stick?  Anything I can take with me?”

“Well, let me think a minute.”  Edgerrin took a heady gulp.  “This is muscadine, you know.  It was a native kind of grape.  This bottle was here before the war.  Tell me, did they get muscadines to grow over at the Station?  What about their little colony, Cicada?  I get such old news down here.  Every body up there’s forgotten I’m down here; I just know it.”

“There was some at the market at Cicada last summer.  They’re well out of the fallout lands.  Radiation came down those little rivers ones southwest of here, near Spa City, undoubtedly, but not enough to register on any of the radcounters. Cicada’s on the Saltline river, the plague was the only thing you have to worry about over there.  Those muscadines have been growing uncontaminated there as long as the ones in that bottle.  I can bring you those muscadines next summer. 

“You can get them cheaper in Arkansas City, but Arkansas City is a hell of a lot closer to Wormwood.  That’s up north of Luster on the Little Big River where it does set the radcounters clicking.  Wasn’t even a bomb that nuked that place; it was crazy people at the power plant.  That place will still be setting off radcounters when our grandchildren have grandchildren.”  The wine was making Juana feel talkative.  She kept remembering, however, that she still needed to go get feed before noon.  “Have you thought of anything yet?”

Edgerrin seemed to be deep in his own thoughts, swirling the dregs of his wine around in the glass.  “Oh, what?  A disc?”  He set aside the glass and sat up.

“Yes, I wish I could stay all winter and talk to you, but I really have to be somewhere at noon.  And it’s difficult to tell time when I can’t see the sun.  I will come back, Edgerrin, if you’ll let me.  There’s so much to learn from here.  Some of these gadgets I’ve never seen.  Do you know what they all do?”

“Well quite a few of them.  And there are manuals for everything as well.  It’s in quite a disarray.  I was doing inventory before I decided to protest the beer festival.  I don’t care what they say, that grain has got to be tainted.  Maybe not enough to make folks sick right now, but in five years they may be noticing that something is not right.”

“What are you talking about?”  Juana grunted as Edgerrin stood up and shoved the unopened bottle of wine into her lap.

He started sliding open panels in the walls and shelves, looking for something.  “Oh, here.  Let’s try this one.”  He waved a piece of flat yellow plasteel in his free hand.  He stuck it into an unfamiliar looking slot and a little green light beside it lit.  He leaned over Juana, and she could smell nothing but the reek of wine as he clacked away at the keypad.

“How many bottles have you opened today, Edgerrin?” 

“This is the second, no worries.  I never get to the third one.  Take that one with you.  Don’t drink the beer.”

“The beer is pretty good, you know.”

“Then drink it in strict moderation.  There’s no way that stuff up there is untainted.”  Edgerrin sniffed.

“Perhaps we’ve built up a tolerance, ” said Juana.

The green light began to burn red.

“And perhaps you’ll die of cancer in ten years.”

Juana watched the red light turn yellow, staying silent until it flashed to green again.  Then she asked what she’d been wondering for a few minutes, “What do you do for fresh water?”

“This shelter still has a fantastic recycling center that still operates at its full capacity.”

“So you drink your own piss?”

“You’re a rude little thing, you know that?” 

Juana grinned.  “Sorry.  We carry water here in barrels, usually from Spa City.  Though I do buy grains here to feed the pigs.”

Edgerrin handed her the strange yellow disk.  “Pig feed?  I hope you don’t eat the pigs.  There’s your .xtc files.  Good luck finding something that can read that disk.  I don’t even know what it’s called.  I could look it up, but it is not long until noon.”  He gestured at the numbered disk on the wall.  Juana had seen it, but did not know what it was.

“We don’t eat the pigs.” Juana was mildly offended, but had been distracted by Edgerrin’s gesture.  “What is that thing?  What is it for?”

“What?  The clock?  It tells the time.”

“Like a sundial?”  Juana could see similarities.

“Sort of, only kept running mechanically instead of by the sun.  Or in this case by wheels and cogs powered by the sun, since the energy for this shelter is generated by solar panels.”  Edgerrin was enjoying having company.  Especially someone that asked questions he could answer.

“Interesting.  I have heard of them, but wasn’t sure what they were or even really looked like, except as being similar to sundials.  I will visit you again, soon Edgerrin.”  Juana pocketed the disc.  “Shall I use the back door?”

“Not if you intend to bring some muscadines or bottled water or anything else that might interest a lonely fellow like myself.  Come on, I’ll show you out the front door.”

They passed through more long tunneling hallways until they reached a decontamination chamber set just before the door to an elevator shaft.  After making their way through the gasses in the double-sealed door they took the lift up, they were deposited into a poorly lit basement full of file cabinets.  Juana wondered what was in them.

“Uncle Chester was a bit of a packrat.  He salvaged and saved anything he could get his hands on.  Started a library topside for all of those people.  There’s a smaller, but better one down here, no doubt.  But he amassed quite a collection in the time he had as the shelter’s caretaker.  He was far more outgoing and happy to meet with the public than either my father or me.  The only topsiders that ever come down here are the big folks like the mayor or the judges.  I’ve met the last couple of sheriffs, but they go through those fairly quickly.”  Edgerrin chattered at Juana as he led her up the stairs to the basement door and through to a large, high-ceilinged room crammed with shelves and shelves of books.  “Thankfully there’s always someone in to clean them, or the place would be all dark, dusty, and full of cobwebs.  There’s only a handful of people in Center City that can read, and half of them only come through this building to see me.”

There was a desk on the library side of the door, and a man in a uniform and hat sitting at it.  There were regular red and black playing cards laid out in a strange pattern on the desktop.  He stopped casting them down and had looked up when the door opened. 

“A new one?” the guard asked.

“Yes.  Juana.  Add her to the list.” Edgerrin turned from the guard back to Juana.  “This is as far as I go.  Just head straight towards that light up that row, and then make a right and you’ll see the front door and the librarian’s desk.  Come back and visit me any time.”

Edgerrin disappeared through the stairway doors, and Juana turned to make her way out of the dimly lit library.  The guard momentarily caught her eye, and she thought that he might have been the same Charro that had given her the napkin to begin with.  Feeling a wave of paranoia, Juana didn’t allow her eyes to linger, and made her way calmly up the stacks to the exit.  The devalue feeling of it made her flesh creep, even as she was loading sacks of feed onto the coach.

Moretta

Moretta had waited most of the morning to talk to Center City’s Master of Trade.  Apparently Master Earnest also held various other offices and had many pressing duties during the festival.  His secretary, Katelin, had been making Moretta comfortable in the small anteroom to his office in the City Hall.

            “Master Earnest should be here soon.  He almost always stops by at least two fists before noon to see if there’ve been any messengers.  Even if it is in the middle of an important Festival.”  It was the first thing the secretary had said in almost a fist.  They had both been delicately reading crumbling paperbacks from a shelf that lined one wall of the anteroom. 

            Moretta read very slowly and had only finished a few pages.  Though she had been reading it for the better part of an hour, she decided she would never finish it, and slid the book into the space it had left.  They were pre-end books.  Pre-end books were not necessarily difficult to find.  But in a world where only a few people could actually read, only a few people had any interest in them.  There were some places, Moretta knew, that would buy books that interested them.  Terrapin Station had a library; they would buy things in good condition, and pay extra for hardback books and discs.  There were several stalls at the Spa City Market that dealt in books.  White River and Memphis were the only two other places Moretta could think of off-hand that might buy books.  She could not think of anybody that would want these old paperbacks though.  They were all sex books; on their covers were spread beautiful scantily clad women and strong handsome men.  They were not nearly as racy as some of the old skin mags she had seen in Memphis, though a few were close.

            “How many of these have you read?” Moretta asked the secretary, not really expecting a reply.  The girl had been quiet all morning. 

            “I’ve read a little bit of all of them.  Just the dirty parts, mostly.  He hasn’t brought in any new ones in quite a while though.  The collection started off as his grandmother’s or something.”

            It was the most she had said since Moretta had gotten there earlier.  Moretta did not like to have her ears talked off, but silence sometimes bothered her just as much.  Katelin even moved around quietly as she worked.  She had gone through several stacks of papers and entered data into some wide ledgers.

“Lemma ask you something,” Moretta said, sitting down in the chair in front of the secretary’s desk. 

Katelin lowered the romance novel, her finger marking her place, eyebrows raised.  “Go ahead.”

“What do you think about the Dragon’s road?”

“Well, it would be better if the Dragon sent some of his trading caravans down it instead of just his highwaymen.” 

“Obviously Center City’s got beer to trade, but what else does it really have to offer in trade?”

Katelin laughed.  “Grains: wheat, oats, bran, rice, wild rice, all kinds of grains.  But whether they’re tainted or not is anybody’s guests.  Although, they had some fella from Memphis out to test them, and he said they were fine.  Then a guy from Terrapin Station said they weren’t.  I’ve heard it all come through this office, but I don’t know either.  None of the animals here have two heads or six legs or anything.  Fish don’t have twelve eyes.  Neither do our babies.  I think we’ll all be okay.”

She set the paperback down and leaned on her elbows, leaning towards Moretta.  Moretta leaned closer as Katelin continued.  “But there are things we need out there that we don’t have here.”

Moretta settled in to listen to Katelin’s list, and her thoughts about local government.  Moretta got the feeling that Katelin’s job was fairly boring, sitting in the anteroom reading the nasty bits of old romance novels.  It gave her plenty of time to think.  She just needed a good listener to share her bottled-up thoughts with.  Nodding at making little sounds at just the right places, Moretta pieced together enough information to forgo a meeting with Master Earnest until she had some documentation bearing the Dragon’s seal.  People tended to become more helpful once they saw it.  From Katelin’s description, Master Earnest would be far more receptive if Moretta called upon him after discussing her plans with the Dragon.

Jerusha

            Jerusha sat in the wooden, straight-backed chair with her skinny legs dangling.  She fought the urge to swing them back and forth.  It was not lady like, and she knew her Da wanted her to be a lady.  Her denims were crisp and new, as was her pullover.  Her Da had bought them for her, along with a canvas bag and a few supplies and toiletries he thought his daughter would need for the trip to Cicada and her new home there. 

Corrigan did not have much to offer his daughter, but he gave what he could.  Her Ma’s family would be able to provide more opportunity than he ever would.  They had left Center City, seeking an easier life in a friendlier environment.  Corrigan did not want Jerusha to see him work himself to death at the mill; he could no longer stand seeing his child barely surviving in poverty.  That was why he was sending her to live with them.

Hadaria’s death three years before had been sudden, and they had not been at all prepared for it.  Life in the wastelands was often cut short, but Jerusha’s Ma had been younger than anyone else they had ever heard of having the skin sickness.  There was not a doctor in Center City.  There was one midwife and a barber who pulled teeth on occasion.  Neither knew how to treat skin sickness.  A month after Hadaria noticed the first skin-spots, she was dead.  The disease had worked quickly, but Corrigan would swear it had taken forever as he watched his wife writhe in pain during the last week and a half of her life.

It pained Jerusha to see the look of anguish on her Da’s face.  She took hold of his large, calloused hand and squeezed it. 

“Da, I’ll see you again soon.  I’m just moving to Cicada with Aunt Polly; you’re not burying me too.”  Jerusha felt like she was abandoning her Da.  She slid beneath his arm and snuggled up against him, enjoying the familiar and comforting smell of his skin tonic.   

“Without me here eating all your food, you’ll have extra jink.  You’ll be able to pay off the guild twice as quick.  Then you can move down to Cicada, too.  I’ll have everything ready for us when you get there, I promise.”  Jerusha believed every word with her ten-year-old heart.

Corrigan Ramble tried not to cry, and smiled at his little girl.  Her wide, dark eyes and the tilt of her chin made her look so very much like her Ma.   

The Spliff and the Flask

Everyone’s a misfit in the Afterlife.

When Tyrion spotted the Arroyo Express Coach in the ruins, he planned his next three big moves.  The first was to find the stage master, and get a contract to Spa City.  The other two would wait. 

He did not immediately switch directions and head for the stagecoach, however.  He still had to pick up his guns.  He had made that a priority even before seeing the coach.  After his experience from the last time he had been through Center City, he had not felt safe enough to smuggle his guns into town.  Lucky Edsel’s place was just outside of town.  It was a squat post-war building that had obviously been built to withstand a siege.  The small windows were barred, and there was a cage just inside the only visible entrance that was often locked to keep customers or intruders alike in check.  It was part pawnshop and part rental storage. 

The place was empty while Tyrion claimed his travel-pack and his guns, except for himself and the old, toothless man he thought might be Edsel.  The cage made him nervous, and he tried to be patient as he rummaged through his travel sack to make sure nothing was missing.  He had plenty of light; the only window in the room was a skylight just above him, making it difficult to see more than a couple of feet beyond the cage.

  Edsel returned with his guns and slid them through the plasteel barrier’s one slot on the countertop.  As he reloaded the empty weapons, Tyrion could feel at least one other gun pointed at him.  It was fine to reload your weapons inside Lucky Edsel’s, but it would never be wise to point them at anything inappropriate while there. 

Everything was accounted for and paid up, so Tyrion headed back for the ruins and the campsite where he’d spotted the Arroyo Coach.

 “Excuse me, good sir, are you the team leader for this coach?”  Tyrion gave Billiam a wide smile as he asked.  Tyrion thought that the large man might be stronger than he was smart.  It did not really matter to Tyrion.  He knew he was not the teamster for this particular coach.

Billiam looked up from rolling a wildweed spliff, but could not see the stranger’s face.  He was standing with the sun behind him, so all that Billiam could see was a corona of light around a tousled head of dark curls.  Though he thought the hair womanish, Billiam thought the speaker was a man.  He grunted and started rooting through his pockets for a light.

With a metallic clink and a spark, Tyrion produced a flame for Billiam’s smoke.  “I’m seeking a contract to Spa City.  I came to Center City for the festival, and my lady friend has deserted me for a luckier man.  I want to go home; I am no longer in a festive mood.”

Billiam took a long drag and held the smoke in his lungs a moment before exhaling an answer.  “Moretta’s the boss.  She’ll be back shortly.  I’m just Texas.”

Tyrion understood the first two sentences, but the last one baffled him.  He gestured to an empty stump next to Billiam.  “May I join you until she returns?”

“Sure.  It’s a free country.  Smoke?”  He offered Tyrion the spliff as he settled himself on the stump.  “I’m Billiam.”

“Tyrion,” he introduced himself, trying not to cough as he handed the burning brand back to Billiam.  The big fella’s wildweed was harsh; it seared the back of his throat.  He produced a flask and took a long pull, then handed it to Billiam.  “I thank you for the smoke.  Please, have some whiskey.”

Billiam exchanged the spliff for the flask and took a drink.  Taking a good look at this new arrival as the sunspots wore away from his sight.  Tyrion tried not to grin when Billiam started coughing.  He slapped him on the back and handed over the spliff before tucking the flask into a pocket of his long jacket.

“Tell me, where is your next stop?  I should look for another mode of transportation if you won’t be passing near Spa City.” 

“We’ll stay over at Luster before we head south.  We have got a fare to drop off at Cicada.  Spa City isn’t that much out of the way.  Moretta’ll probably let you go along with us if you’ve got the jink.”  They had taken on contract riders many times before under similar circumstances.  Billiam did not see any reason that they would not be able to take Tyrion to Spa City.

“Tell me, Billiam, where did you find such terrific beasts as these to pull the coach?  I thought Arroyo used mules and zorses.”  He had never been close to such a large porcine creature.  They had fierce tusks as long as his hand and snouts as large as Billiam’s fist.  They had a ridge of bristly hair across their backs.  Each one was buckled into a harness and attached to the coach. 

“They’re Juana’s hogs.  She raised em.  Most of Arroyo’s coaches is pulled by zedonks.  The pigs can go as far and half again in a day as the stripe-asses.  They don’t wear out as quick, and they can pull a heavier load.  We’re on a trial basis.  If we don’t do as good as the rest of the coaches the Dragon will have Juana’s pigs as bar-b-qued ribs, and we’ll be behind stripe-asses like everyone else.” 

“Which do you prefer?  The zedonks or the giant hogs?”

“Don’t matter much what’s pulling this coach, as long as it isn’t me.  Both critters stink just as bad.  How about another pull of that whiskey?”

“Of course, mate.  That’s genuine Harold’s whisky, that is.”  Tyrion was chuckling.  “I can see you’re a man of taste.”

And so they exchanged the spliff and the flask until Helen joined them.  And then Juana and Moretta arrived together, each carrying a bag of feed over her shoulder.  Moretta took Tyrion’s jink and welcomed him aboard.  He climbed into the coach, as Moretta found her place next to Juana’s spot.  Helen and Billiam mounted up.  Helen’s jennet sidestepped and pranced as she tried to settle herself onto its back and take her place at the rear of the stagecoach.  Billiam turned his piebald mule toward his place near the front of the coach, trying to hide the amused grin on his face.  He was feeling more than a little tipsy, but Helen was the one falling off of her mule.

Juana climbed up onto the driver’s bench, and with the traces in hand, gave the command for the hogs to start pulling.  Arroyo Coach # 005 began to roll forward on fat, nubbed tires, the squeals and grunts of the pigs preceding them.  Festivalgoers on foot cleared the way as Juana threaded through the tent city that had sprung up around between the ruins and Center City like mushrooms in the night.  Juana saw a few mules and even a goat cart, but most of the people seemed to have come on foot.  Remembering the prices for the hostels, she figured that the stables might be full as well.  Though no horses were apparent in the narrow streets, Juana was willing to bet that there were a few in the stables.  Anyone with enough jink to own a horse could probably afford a room.  This was the first Beer Festival Center City had ever had, but Juana was willing to bet that it wouldn’t be the last.  They were making a killing off of rooms alone.  If the level of intoxication of the average festivalgoer was any indication, the tap men were not hurting for trade either.

Soon Juana halted the stagecoach at the Way station.  It was along the east edge of Center City, with the road running southeast, parallel to the end of the Finger River.  Both riverboats and caravans stopped here to trade and take on passengers.  Billiam went inside with Moretta to pick up the fare, while everyone else waited outside in the noon heat.  Juana pulled her straw hat low over her eyes, bumping the wide brim against her sunglasses.  She was starting to perspire, but her skin did not feel as if it were on fire yet.  As light as her hempen clothes were, they covered her completely and held her body heat close from neck, to wrist, to ankle.  Once the stage got rolling, she knew she would cool off in the breeze. 

The wait was not long; soon Moretta came out followed by a dark whiskered man, a little girl, and a weaving Billiam.  Billiam stowed the girl’s canvas bag and mounted up once more.  Moretta held the stage door open while the girl and man exchanged a tearful goodbye.    

 When Moretta climbed back onto the bench beside Juana, she could see alligator tears trembling in the corner Moretta’s eyes.  Juana reached over and squeezed her thigh before calling the hogs into action.

The dusty miles retreated behind them, their wheels turning up the grasses that had taken root in the now unpolluted soils along the south bank of the Finger.  That night they would camp on the eastern edge of the fallout wastes, where green things grew in abundance instead of in clumps along the few water sources left in the man-made desert.  The next night they would be in Luster, and a day or so later, depending on the mountain roads, they would be in Spa City.  From there it was a three-day journey to Cicada.