July awoke to the sound of footsteps pacing back and forth, and things being moved around. Tom was sorting out what he’d need for the next leg of the journey. July sat up and rubbed his stump leg before attaching the prosthetic one.
“You’re up early.”
“Couldn’t sleep,” Tom shrugged. “We need to get moving.”
He gestured towards the door and July limped outside to see why; a sheet of clouds blanketed the sky and hugged the mountain peaks. It appeared to be night and yet a gentle green hue was smeared upon the desert, something July had only encountered once before roughly ten years ago.
“Are the others up?” he asked.
“They have been for a while. I told them what they’d need.”
“Yeah, gas masks, Geiger counters and a lot of bullets. Make sure they eat plenty before we leave, I don’t want to stop for rest at all if we can help it.”
“You and me both.”
July glared up at the greenish clouds as they flashed bright with lightning. “We should leave soon. Don’t want to get caught in a radioactive rain storm either.”
Charlie and Wade joined them and they ate until they were full – mostly canned food, although Wade cooked up the dead overgrown rat and served it with mushrooms, and though it tasted like crap at least the meat was fresh.
The dull glow of corrupted sunlight stretched through the canvas doors, everyone grabbed their packs and went outside where a foul wind was picking up, and with his 45-70 slung over his shoulder July took out his compass and gazed exactly north-west at the shadowy mountains.
Something rattled nearby in the Jeep.
“Hey!” Tom shouted, raising his pistol.
A young woman sat in the Jeep but quickly raised her hands, and another who looked just like her stood beside it, also with her hands nervously raised. They were twins. Both girls had red hair and freckles, they wore green flight jackets that were too big for them; one wore a blue beanie and carried a shotgun on her back with the red shells on a strap draped over her shoulder, while the other wore a peak hat and carried no visible weapons.
“Shit,” the girl in the car whispered. She addressed July. “So, uh… This is exactly what it looks like.”
“You’re stealing our car?” said Charlie.
“Our car,” July pointed out, referring to he and Tom.
“Just please don’t shoot us,” the girl with the shotgun stuttered. “My sister said you didn’t look like killers, though she isn’t always the best… the best judge of character.”
The other girl rolled her eyes.
“I believe her though,” the girl went on. “We’re just travellers, we heard about this place on the road, but when we saw you guys inside we thought it was too dangerous so we uh… we decided to hotwire your car.”
“Jesus Christ Alice,” said the girl in the Jeep.
“What?” Alice quietly snapped. “Can you think of a decent excuse. Maybe if we’re honest with these guys they’ll show some mercy. You’re the one who wanted to trust them to begin with.”
“That was before they caught us stealing their Jeep.”
July gestured for them to stop talking. “Ladies please, we’re not going to kill you.” He glanced at Tom. “I’ve had to say that a lot this week.”
“Well hang on,” said Charlie, with a smile. “No one agreed to that.”
“Very funny.” July gazed up at the greenish clouds. “Alright, we still have a moment.”
He gestured back to the shelter and they followed. Charlie lit a small fire and the girls sat where Wade was the night before. Wade sat across from them and smiled timidly, Charlie kept her distance, her arms crossed; it seemed being in a room with so many strangers was new for everyone.
Before July could join the others, Tom stopped him and spoke quietly. “You’re being very friendly, and not just with the twins. First Charlie, I get her, I mean she has a bit of a dark vibe but she hasn’t let us down yet, but then this new guy, and suddenly two more? What are starting a book club?”
“I get where you’re coming from,” July answered. “But I want you to trust me on this. We’ve been alone for what, say, ten years? Scavenging the wasteland is one thing, we can handle that, but getting caught in the middle of a skirmish between Raiders and Royalists and god knows who else, it’s too dangerous. We need people watching our backs.”
“And what happens when one of our new buddies sticks a knife in our backs?”
“I didn’t say we have to trust them, not right away at least. Let’s just get home, first we’ll see if they can be trusted, then we’ll see what they’re worth. Besides, we don’t know what to expect when we do get back, we might need them.”
When everyone was seated around the fire the conversation began. Six travellers lost in a dangerous world, all eventually drawn to one place and one goal, it felt an awful lot like fate.
“Tell me your names,” July told the twins.
They glanced at each other as if one could read the other’s thoughts. “I’m Jodie, this is my sister Alice, but you can probably guess that.”
“What happened to your leg?” said Alice. She had been looking at it for a while now.
July answered quickly. “Car accident. You want to tell us how you got here, and what you were planning on doing with the Jeep?”
The girls refused to speak.
“Would it help if I went first?” July offered. He decided to tell them as much as he could, choosing his words carefully, emphasising the point that he and his companions belonged to no reigning factions, and also excluding the information about his current relationship with the Christians; it was best to remain neutral when speaking to strangers. “So that’s my story. Now you.”
Alice bit her lip and Jodie stared at the floor. “What does it matter to you?” said Jodie.
July pulled the key to the Jeep from his pocket and held it in front of them. “I think we can help each other, but we need to trust each other first.”
“Okay,” said Alice. “We came from the Pandemonium Region…”
“But we don’t belong to The Anarchists,” Jodie quickly added.
“Right,” Alice went on. “Settlements in the outer region of Pandemonium are left to their own devices – Mr. Chaos likes to keep to himself, at least, he used to. We had heard the rumours about a new Fascist movement spurring in Elireiche City, the southern region there is independent but we assumed The Church and their Templars would step in before any kind of revolution happened. The Nazis drove a lot of people out of the city, especially Christians, then they took the Baywire Power Station – which was close to our home – from the Anarchists, and finally they got Fort Stark.”
July didn’t want to interrupt, but he finally understood why the Christians at Bastille Point were gearing up for war, they must have been anticipating a potential attack not just from Raiders or Royal-Communists in the north, but also Fascists in the south. They weren’t talking about war any longer, and there wouldn’t be any more minor skirmishes, this battle would likely envelop the entire Valley. If what Alice was saying was true, there’d be no way an independent settlement like Haven could just sit on the sidelines and wait it out. Maybe they would be forced to make a choice; join the Royalists or be destroyed.
Jodie told the next part of the story. “Other than providing most of our energy and a whole lot of money for Danny Chaos, the power station also limited access into Anarchist territory. We were at the mercy of the Fascists so we tried to leave and that’s when the Royalists showed up; it was like a whole god damn army, enough to storm the power station yet again and take it from the Fascists.”
“Now wait a minute,” Wade interrupted. “Royalist army HQ or whatever it is, that’s up north, and the only major road to Baywire taken them through two large Christian settlements.”
July locked his fingers together and leaned forward. After his accident, he and Tom had spent a long time living off their supplies in the Bunker. Everything was falling into place. “Baywire would have been a time-sensitive opportunity too valuable to pass up. I’m assuming you’ve all heard the transmissions, the Royalists have been planning this for years, they have the resources to protect Christian settlements from both Raiders and Fascists. If I were the Royalists and I wanted to capture Baywire quickly I’d make a deal with the Christians ensuring free access through their territory in exchange for protection.”
“Well, however they got there,” said Alice, “we ended up in the middle of it. Maybe you’ve heard that the Royalists were taking refugees back to Sanctum? Huh, we thought it was a good idea until we learned about their conscripts. Turns out citizenship is earned through military service. They don’t accept refugees, they capture war prisoners and put them on the front line, and you know the punishment for desertion is a bullet, right?”
Suddenly Wade shifted uncomfortably.
“We didn’t plan on going to Sanctum,” Jodie continued, “so we got out as soon as we could. We didn’t really know where we were going but we had heard about this place, and here we are. Satisfied?”
July chuckled. “You know this is supposed to be a secret cache for The Sun Children.” He glanced at Tom. “I'll have to take this up with Phoebe, obviously someone in her organisation can't keep a secret.” He turned back to Alice and Jodie. “Where would you take the Jeep?”
Alice and Jodie looked at each other. “Bastille Point. It’s protected by The Royalists. Nobody expects anything from us there. We can lay low.”
“I thought you might say that.” July tossed the keys to Jodie. “Here’s the deal; take the Jeep and go wherever you please, though I should mention that there’s a certain someone who may or may not kill you if he learns you’ve been driving it around.”
Tom subtly mouthed the words ‘it’s stolen’.
July smiled and went on. “Or, you can come with us to Haven. Whatever we may find there I’d wager it’s one of the safest places in The Valley right now, and once we arrive we can figure out what comes next. The choice is yours.”
They gave the twins a moment to decide, and while they waited July and Tom observed the light patter of rain outside.
“That little conversation cost us some time,” said Tom.
July nodded. “Having the twins will make up for it.” Seeing the darkening mountain sent a shiver down his spine, the memory of his first journey returned to him in frightening images, until a voice pulled him back into reality.
Jodie was standing behind him, surprisingly she wore a cute smile. “Okay, July, we’ve agreed. We’re coming with you.”
July patted her on the shoulder, she didn’t wince. “Then there isn’t a moment to lose.”
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