ALBA

by HL TRUSLOVE

  During that first night, everyone comes together to cook for the evening. On the outskirts of the camp you can see someone standing just where the firelight ends. They look nervous as you approach.

  “Hello,” you call. The figure jumps. It’s a young man, probably no more than eighteen. He looks worried.

  “Don’t panic, I’m not going to hurt you. My friends and I have decided to come and live here, just like you.” You gesture to the group behind you. “We’re having dinner, would you like to join us?”

  The boy’s eyebrows skyrocket, but then he nods.

  “I’d like that a lot. Please. Thank you.”

  You bring him in to eat. The next night, he brings friends. Conversation begins to flow slowly amongst everyone.

  And you smile, knowing you’ve taken the first step to the real new world.

  THE END.

  34.C

  “Fanon,” you say, and he looks surprised that you’re addressing him, “I showed you those blueprints earlier, yes? The ones of the balloon?”

  He nods, straightening up.

  “You did. Said they were used by raiders.”

  “They were. But they weren’t just used by raiders! On the coast, when I came back to look for you, there was a farm. They were fishermen. And they had one of these, too, but they didn’t use it for attacking, they used it for surveying the land. Like a watchtower. And to keep an eye on the horizon for storms. If we had something like that, then…”

  Your sentence trails off. Everyone there can read the end of it without you needing to say it aloud.

  Then nothing like what happened to me will ever need to happen to anyone again.

  “Let me look at the blueprints,” says Mari, clearing the now sullen silence in the air. You come forward and roll them out onto the centre table. She inspects them for a moment, lips pursed in concentration.

  “I see no reason that we can’t replicate these.”

  “Really?” say you and Fanon in tandem.

  “Really. We have mechanics and builders here, after all. And of course you’ve seen these artefacts in action and that goes a long way,” she tells you. Excitedly, you nod.

  “Show me where I need to get started.”

  It isn’t an easy project. Finding all of the necessary components is difficult. Enough fabric to get the thing to fly, the right kind of fabric, and then get the propane to get the damned thing off the ground. It’s an experiment that ends with more than one burning pile of cloth.

  In fact, Mari even sends word back to the vault to send over more gas canisters and a crate of nylon. They don’t ask her why. You think they’re a little bit afraid of her back overseas, and you can’t blame them. Maybe that’s why she ended up over here.

  By the time the second ship arrives with its quarry, you’ve cobbled together enough prototypes to know exactly what you’re doing. It isn’t an easy thing to finish, not by far – especially getting the weight of the basket right – but eventually, many moons after you first suggest the project, it’s done.

  It’s impressive, the day you do your first test flight. The balloon is patched together from huge pieces of red and blue fabric – all stitched together tightly, the burner chugging away beneath the skirt to inflate it.

  “Exceptional,” Fanon mutters, truly mesmerised at the sight. You think back to when you first showed him the blueprints, how he didn’t want anything to do with it, and now look at him – just as caught up in the whole thing as you are.

  “Right,” says Mari, “give it a test, then.”

  It takes a moment to realise she’s talking to you.

  “What, me?!”

  “Yes you. Who else? None of us have seen one of these in action before.”

  That’s true. You’re the only one here who’s been up in a balloon, or that’s been close enough to see how it works. You’ve studied the blueprints enough to know, in theory, what to do.

  In theory is a lot different from in practice, though.

  With shaky steps you head into the basket beneath. Fanon gives you a big grin; Mari just looks a little bit worried and doesn’t try to hide it.

  “Just do an ascent and a descent. Nothing fancy; don’t endanger yourself.”

  Heart in your mouth, you start the burner.

  The balloon rises slowly. The basket gives a little wobble and you panic that it’s not secured properly – but it is, it must be, you were the one who oversaw it.

  Keeping eye contact with your colleagues on the ground, you rise higher into the air, little by little, above their heads, above the tents, soon above the newly erected radio tower in the middle of camp. You keep going, higher and higher.

  The wind gets chillier and you snuggle down into your coat. The land unrolls before you like you unfurled the blueprints for Fanon all that time ago. A sense of pride swells in your chest as you realise all of your hard work has finally paid off. This is what you’ve been working towards.

  You must be at least five hundred feet in the air by now. The Old World stretches out in all directions beneath you, green and promising. You can see the ocean from up here. It rolls in lazy waves and greets you like an old friend. You feel like you could do anything up here. Go off and find all the splintered villages living across this land and unite them together, start a city, start anew.

  With a deep breath of cold air comes a smile.

  In the distance, a whale crests for just a moment before returning to her home under the water.

  THE END.

  Chapter 35

  Ending Six

  35.0

  You consider what Mari has just asked of you. This decision she’s dumped in your lap. Maybe you should be worried. Scared, even. But you aren’t, because you know what your answer is going to be.

  “How many guns do we have here?” you ask. Mari’s eyebrows skyrocket, clearly not the question she was expecting to be asked.

  “A couple… Not many.”

  “We’ll need more.” You get to your feet and walk over to the map they have laid out on the table, peering at the topography. So many raider bases around here, you think. It’s so dangerous for the camp to sit here, in the middle of an open area, barely guarded. It’s amazing they haven’t been attacked yet.

  “This place… is a battlefield. The whole thing,” you say, running your fingers over the paper. “Nobody is safe. You want to know what I think the best thing is for us to do from now on?”

  You slam a fist down to make a point.

  Mari and Fanon both jump. “The best thing we can do is try and wipe out as many violent groups as possible. They might have grown up here, but we have better resources than they do. If we can take them down, maybe this place will actually be liveable.”

  Fanon looks at you with abject horror.

  “You want us to kill people?” he asks. You shrug.

  “I want to kill raiders.” Maybe you should add on an ‘I don’t even want to kill them’, but that’s not necessarily true. You do.

  Being out there has changed you. Warped you. You aren’t the person you were when you started this journey, and frankly you’re not sure if you’d want to be. People might say it was a bad thing, but you aren’t so sure. You just had to become hardened to this world. If the vault didn’t expect this to be a possibility, they shouldn’t have sent you out in the first place. You’ve had to develop a shell, of sorts; something to harden you against this dire world. Because if you hadn’t, you think you might have died.

  Mari looks gaunt, but at least seems more understanding than her father. She comes to join you at the map.

  “There are a few bases around here that we know of. We haven’t had an interaction with any of them yet. I’m not sure they even know we’re here.”

  “Good. That’ll work to our advantage,” you say, pulling out your own map and comparing it to what they have here. You realise just how dirty and creased the thing is. You really haven’t treated this map very well, but it has lots of annotations on it, things that wi
ll probably be priceless information if you’re going to do this well. “We’re going to need more guns – and people who know how to use them. Do you think the vault can provide that?”

  “Only one way to find out,” she sighs. “I’ll go and put a call in right now.”

  She leaves the tent. Fanon and you are on your own now. When you look at him, he looks horrified. It’s an expression you’ve never seen on him before; usually he keeps everything so neutral, or jovial. So this, this is new.

  “I can’t believe this,” he says quietly.

  Maybe you should feel bad, but you just shrug.

  “Yes, it’s not the ideal solution. But do you really want to risk our entire camp getting wiped out by raiders?”

  “If you start there, where does it stop?” he asks, his voice rising, both angry and pleading. “How do you decide who is a raider and who isn’t? Because it doesn’t seem to me like you want to put much effort into that side of things. What if you hurt innocent people?”

  You let this question sink in, percolating in the air around you with a heft you don’t much like. You find yourself shrugging once again.

  “Once they catch wind of what we’re doing, anyone who isn’t a raider will want to stay on their best behaviour, won’t they? Then we won’t have a problem.”

  Fanon just shakes his head, looking sick.

  “I thought you were different,” he says.

  “I am,” you reply with another shrug, “just not in the way you wanted me to be.”

  You lock eyes for a moment longer, and he looks like he wants to say something else. He doesn’t, though; he just shakes his head and storms out of the tent. As he goes, Mari returns, almost knocked off her feet by her father. She watches him go with sadness.

  “Well,” she tells you, “we have the go-ahead from the vault. They’re going to send another ship over with some firepower and soldiers. We need to get to the coast to meet them, and then we can start working on a… a plan of attack, I guess.”

  An announcement about the next steps of the mission is given that night at dinner. You hear nervous chatter from all around the mess hall. Of course, not everyone is going to be happy that you’re suddenly turning on the offensive – pretty much nobody here is a soldier. But you’re sure everyone can be taught to use a weapon.

  The next day, the camp is packed up and you travel to the coast to meet the incoming ship. It’s a couple of days of travelling and then a lot of waiting. You spend most of that time with Mari discussing various tactics. Nobody else in the camp approaches you. You’re not sure if it’s because they’re angry you’re making them fight, or because they’re scared of you. Secretly, you hope it’s the latter. You like the idea that people are scared of you. Because it means the raiders should be, too.

  The boat arrives three weeks later. It’s much bigger than the one you sailed over on. It has to be, you suppose, considering the amount of people it has on it. You watch the crew unpack their quarry. There are a lot of boxes of what you can only assume are firearms. You smile.

  That night, Fanon comes to you and Mari for the first time since you made your decision. He looks at the two of you levelly from where you sit in the mess hall, at your own table.

  “I’m going back to the vault when the boat leaves,” he tells you. “I can’t condone what you’re doing and I won’t be a part of it. It’s time for me to go.”

  Mari is sad, but not surprised. All she says is, “I can’t stop you.”

  Fanon looks like he wanted her to say something else, but knows he can’t change her mind. He just nods and leaves.

  “I’m sorry,” you tell her, because it seems like the right thing to say.

  “Don’t be,” she tells you. “I’m a soldier. My father isn’t. I thought this would happen.” She takes a bite of bland dinner. “So. Now we have everyone. Where do we go?”

  You have a think. And then you answer her.

  Turn to 35.A, Needs Meeting Dagger, CANNOT HAVE Dagger’s Fate.

  * * *

  Turn to 35.B, Needs Dagger’s Fate OR NEITHER OF Dagger’s Fate OR Meeting Dagger.

  35.A

  It’s early morning when you approach Dagger’s base. There’s a rifle clutched in your cold hands. Behind you are a couple dozen people, all armed to the teeth. You catch the eye of a burly woman. She gives you a nod, telling you silently that she’s ready.

  You’d left for this place two mornings after the ship docked; enough time for the new members to get settled, not long enough for them to get complacent. You’d headed out with every able-bodied person towards the base. It wasn’t far. No point wasting time.

  Dagger was, without a doubt, one of the most dangerous people you’d met while you were in the Old World. Wiping her off the map would be a huge step for your group’s new mission. Not only would it mean the whole area would be safer, but it would also mean you were serious about what you set off to do.

  You’re set on your glorious purpose.

  You don’t stop when you see the base over the horizon. Instead, you lead the group over the hill and down towards the gates.

  The two guards on duty notice you too late. There’s a bullet in each of them before they can raise the alarm. It’s an easy matter to storm the rest of the place.

  It’s early, so few raiders are awake. The ones out on patrol are taken out quickly, and then your group splits up to go into the various bunks. The sounds of gunshots and screams rhapsodise into the quiet morning air. A smirk grows on your face.

  You step through a puddle of blood, leaving one red footprint behind you as you go towards Dagger’s favoured building.

  You kick down the door and fire. Everyone in the room goes down, clearly not expecting the assault. With a blur, the three figures drop to the floor – two of them you barely recognise, and one you definitely do.

  Dagger’s guards are dead. She isn’t. She’s lying in a pool of slowly growing red. Her eyes flicker with recognition as you approach her.

  “Wait—” she starts, but doesn’t get any further before you have the barrel to her head and pull the trigger. Her skull explodes in shards of white and gooey pink globs. Blood splatters all over your trouser legs.

  You look down at the pulpy mess that was once her head.

  And then you go to the next one.

  THE END.

  35.B

  You leave a couple of days after the ship has departed. Fanon went with it, as he said he would, but you traded him for a couple dozen able soldiers so you can’t be too sad about it, all things considered.

  The camp is packed up again and you move inland. You know the way to the city by now. You don’t even need your old, torn-up map any more. Maybe you’ve become more familiar with this land than you thought you had. Everyone follows you without question. There isn’t a lot of talking as you move. Everyone is nervous. You can understand that.

  It’s quite easy to see the city from far away. The huge spire of the church reaching up towards the sky is a dead giveaway, a compass to guide you. The group seems hesitant but you push forwards anyway, heading into the dilapidated streets.

  It might be difficult to go after individual bases to start with, especially because you can’t be entirely sure how big the raider groups are in each one, or how heavily armed they could be. But, if you start here and wait for people to come to you? Well, that’s a different story.

  The group settles down in what looks like it used to be some sort of plaza. Once surrounded by old shops and houses, now empty from everything but rubble. That’s easily cleared away, and the camp is erected in the space you make.

  You spend a few nights just camping and listening. When you hear the first gunshots, all the soldiers you have jump to their feet and arm themselves, following you into the fray.

  There are raiders down one of the side streets. Civilians are running and screaming, looks of terror on their faces. The raiders whoop and laugh as they chase them.

  But they only have machetes, and you have g
uns.

  A few rounds, and most of the raiders are down. A couple of innocents get caught up, too, but it isn’t your fault they didn’t get out of the way quick enough. You soldiers are reloading as you find a raider who isn’t dead. His arm has been shot through, and he’s rolling around in pain. You put a boot on his chest to stop him.

  “Do you want to live?” you ask. He nods desperately. You gesture and two of your group come and grab him under the armpits, hauling him to his feet. He howls.

  “Then you’ll tell us everything about where you came from?”

  Again, he nods.

  Seems like this will all work out just fine.

  THE END.

  Chapter 36

  Lost Endings

  36.0

  You look at your map. And then you look at it again. And again. Scouring the paper in front of you for some sign of something you’ve missed.

  But you can’t find anything. You’ve officially exhausted every lead you’ve managed to unearth while you’ve been out here. You grab the middle of the map and fling it as far as you can in fury. It doesn’t go a great distance, and sits about two feet away, uncurling slowly.

  You’re tired. Your legs are tired. You’ve been walking for so long. You’ve tried everything to find your group. You’ve gone for miles and miles. You need a break. It’s exhausting.

  You lie back on the grass and look up at the sky. There are clouds coming over. There’s going to be rain soon. More rain. It’s like, no matter where you go, you can never get away from the rain. It’s like it’s haunting you. You know that’s ridiculous, it covers miles of land, but it really does feel like it’s centred on you sometimes. There was a song Vola used to sing about the rain back at the vault. You try and hum it but you can’t remember how it goes.