Corax stops by regularly, landing on the windowsill and nodding to silently let know everything is ok. After only a few hours of work, Lance pops his head in to give us a thumbs up. Despite them being done with their work, Corax doesn’t return permanently. I’m sure he’s perched on the roof, watching over all of us.
The rest of the cavern is pretty quiet while everyone rests. An occasional word, echo of a kicked rock, or distant cough is enough to wake Cassie up, but I can always lull her back into an uneasy rest.
Eventually Vince has a particularly bad nightmare and Cassie instantly snaps to attention, jumping to her feet and sprinting out of the room.
I do my best to follow her, but she’s far faster than I am. By the ti I finally reach Vince’s room, Cassie is already crouched next to him, helping him out of his sleeping bag.
Vince is drenched in sweat, his clothes clinging to his skin. Despite his best efforts to hide it, he’s shaking and leaning heavily on Ivy. She has a canteen in her hands, just waiting for Vince to take it.
“Sorry about that. I’m alright.” He says quietly in a fruitless effort to reassure everyone.
“Shut the fuck up, you’re worse at lying than Blue is.”
“I really think you need to talk about what happened.” I say gently.
“I’m not going to burden you with what happened.” He gives a small shake of his head. “But I’ve talked about it with Ivy a bit.”
“Bullshit, I haven’t heard you say a single word.”
Ivy forces the water into Vince’s hand, grabs her tablet, and begins to type.
“That’s why we’ve used the tablet.” She says.
“When we reach the city, you really need to talk to E-1.” I say. “She helped , at least I think, and I’m certain she’d help you too.”
“Alright, Little Blue. I’ll talk to her. In the anti, how about we get to work? Give a minute to clean up, and we’ll et you in your room. If you could get everyone else too, that’d be great.”
I glance at Cassie, waiting for her to decide what we’re going to do. I’m not going to make her leave Vince’s side if she doesn’t want to.
“Fine.” She says reluctantly and pushes herself to her feet. “We’ll see you in a minute.” She walks directly past and out the door, and I quickly follow behind her.
Corax lands on my shoulder, giving a reassuring nudge.
“You could have stayed with him.” I tell Cassie. “I can get everyone else.”
“No, just drilling into him will only make things worse. This is how he gets through things, get a job and follow through. Scrapping and driving is the only thing that got him through when you went off the deep end at the junkyard.”
“That’s not a permanent solution.” I say.
“Yeah, but we don’t need permanent right now. Him being distracted until we’re ho is good enough.”
“I guess.” I’ve done that exact sa thing a few tis.
Corax nips my ear as we pass by one of the houses, and I stop to knock on the thin, warped door.
It’s opened just a mont later by Robin with his pistol in his hand. Lance is relaxing against the wall next to Nimda.
“Is everyone ok?” He asks quickly. “I was going to co check, but it sounded like you had it under control.”
“Everything is fine.” I reassure him. “Vince just had another nightmare.”
“I told you so.” Nimda says.
“Well excuse for worrying.” Robin says over his shoulder and glares at her for a few seconds before returning his attention to us.
“Vince wants to have a eting.” Cassie says.
“Good.” Lance nods. “We certainly need one.”
“Clover is in our room, it would probably be easiest to have it in there.” I say.
“Lead the way then.” Robin says, and Lance begins to stand up.
The six of us step back into our room next door. Clover still hasn’t moved a single servo since she slumped over hours ago, but that’s alright. She can recover for a while longer, there’s no reason to wake her up until everyone is here.
Silence settles over all of us. I have a lot I want to ask about staying here and about the people who now live here, but anything I ask will just have to be asked again when Ivy and Vince arrive. It’s better to wait.
Apparently Cassie doesn’t have that sa issue. The mont everyone is settled, she speaks up.
“When we go to do work for the people who live here, make sure you let Vince do as much work as he can.” She says quietly enough to be sure he won’t hear.
“But he can barely walk. It will only slow us down.” Nimda complains.
“I don’t care, he needs this. Make him find tools or grab small parts. Just don’t make it obvious we’re patronizing him.”
“I’ll keep him involved.” Lance reassures us. “Ti doesn’t matter much, we’ve got days to get everything done. Nothing wrong with delaying a little and letting him get his confidence back.”
“Yeah, sothing like that.” Cassie says quietly.
Thankfully Nimda holds her speakers, and the eight of us sit in awkward silence until Vince and Ivy walk through the door. He’s already looking much better than he did just a mont ago, all traces of his nightmare carefully hidden beneath a mask of confidence. He might be able to get away with it with Lance, Robin, Nimda, and maybe even Clover, but I’m certain Cassie and Ivy have no problem seeing his underlying fear.
Ivy’s looking the sa as ever. She struggles a tiny bit to get through the door with her crutches, but ultimately manages on her own. Her tablet is tucked into her waistband, and she pulls it out once she’s through the door.
Corax hops off my shoulder, gliding over to Clover’s. Just him landing on her shoulder is enough for her to jerk back to reality.
“Thanks for coming over.” Vince leans heavily against the wall, but remains standing. “Sorry we have to have this, but I want to make sure we’re all on the sa page. To start with, Lance and Robin, the two of you spent so ti with everyone yesterday, right? What do you think of them?”
“As a whole? They don’t want to hurt us, and we can trust them.” Lance says. “As individuals, however? You don’t get out of a situation like they were in entirely stable. I wouldn’t put it past a few of them trying sothing out of fear or perceived desperation.”
“Alright, here’s what I’m thinking then. We need to do everything we can to gain their trust. Making things is great, future proofing this town needs to happen. But none of that helps them today, proves we’re trustworthy right now. We’ve got food to spare, I say we treat them to a al as thanks.”
“I can do that.” I offer. “Although making that much might be difficult, would you mind helping?”
Cassie gives a sly smile as thanks. I have to hold myself back from reacting, I can’t while he’s looking at .
“Sure, Little Blue. We need to do it out in the open though, I don’t want soone getting paranoid and thinking we poisoned their al or sothing. Another point I want to drill into everyone is to not go out alone, and don’t go out unard. Ideally you should ask Corax to keep an eye on everything, but if he’s busy, make sure you stay aware. After everything all of you have been through, I’d hate to lose one of you now.”
“That sounds reasonable.” Nimda says. “I have an array of caras giving high definition video in a 360 degree sphere around . I can substitute for Corax if required.”
“I can as well.” Ivy types out and her tablet says. She pulls back her hair, revealing her artificial eye to the world. “I have fairly good vision.”
“Perfect, let’s split into two groups then.” Vince says. “We’ll focus on food, and you can focus on construction. Feel free to take whatever scrap and tools you need from our trunk, all that can be replaced. Does that work for everyone?”
“I have a question.” Nimda says. “Blue, you promised hydroponics, but I believe aquaponics would be a better solution. Are there fish in the lake?”
“I haven’t actually seen any, but I’d be amazed if there weren’t. Whatever bioluminescent thing is in there must be getting nutrients from sowhere, and it’s certainly not the sun.”
“An underwater thermal vent could be spewing out nutrients.” She points out “Whatever is in there is certainly bioengineered, likely by an AI. Creating sothing to deal with precisely with those nutrients without the support of a broader ecosystem would be an interesting problem, but ultimately doable.”
“The people who lived here before were surviving sohow, and fishing seems like a good guess. I didn’t see any other source of food down here, although I guess it’s possible they were trading for everything.”
“True. I’d like to check in that case. What plants do I have to work with?”
“Potatoes, primarily.” Vince answers. “We’ve already got a handful sprouting in the back. So of the dried foods may have seeds that can be recovered, but you will have to see for yourself.”
“I’ll figure sothing out. I’d like to get started.”
“Alright, just one mont.” Vince pushes himself off the wall and crouches down next to Clover. “Clover? Do you have any flashes we need to know about?”
“I don’t see the future like She did.” She says quietly. “Ti is following a man in what I think are the remnants of Tokyo. The only useful flash I’ve gotten was of Blue and Cassie dying in the trench at the last possible mont to save them.”
“Well, thank you for that. Do you want to help? Or rest more?”
“Rest. The Child needs help.”
“Alright. Corax, can you make sure she stays safe in addition to us?” He asks the large bird on her shoulder.
Corax gives a nod, and hops onto his shoulder.
“Well, let’s get started then.” With obvious effort, Vince pushes himself back onto his feet. “You know, it’s been a long ti since I’ve gone fishing.”
“Can you do it without a rod?” I ask, heading outside with him.
“All you need is a piece of tal, a line, and a hook. I’ll teach you.”
“We used an awful lot of the fishing line in our d kit to help all of you. I’m not sure how much length is actually left.”
“I’m sure we’ll make it work.” Vince opens the trunk of our car and pulls off a small box velcroed to the wall. He flips it open, smiles, and tucks it under his arm. A pipe, a small piece of tal, and a set of shears are quickly collected and he steps back, giving access to the trunk.
How am I going to make food for twenty people? More than twenty, actually. I can’t imagine every single person was at the barricade ready to fight when we arrived. Our pot is big enough to make multiple als for five people at once, doing one al for twenty people should be doable? It’ll burn through a lot of our food reserves, but we only need to make it to the city, and even if sothing goes wrong, we can always stop at Vegas. I fill my backpack with supplies I will need, a bag of rice, cooking utensils, every bowl we have, and the last of our milder fruits and vegetables. After that I fill the pot with water, and begin to lug everything slowly towards the lake.
Nimda stares into the trunk for a few seconds before beginning to grab seemingly random tools and parts, handing the bulk of it off to Cassie, Lance, and Robin.
A few people are already sitting near the lake, and they leave the instant they see us. That’s fine, Corax will tell us if anything seems dangerous. I’m certain he’s already following them, just to be safe.
I begin to set up my modest kitchen while Vince gets to work, all his attention dedicated solely to his job. The flat piece of tal is slowly cut up and bent into a makeshift hook. The fishing wire is then wrapped tightly around the pipe and then tied off securely. I guess he can just rotate it to shorten the length? That should work.
The old man who is seemingly in charge, Joseph, appears from between the houses only a few minutes later.
“Good morning.” He says carefully, not daring to approach. Even I can tell he’s obviously wanting to ask sothing, but his fear keeps him quiet.
“Morning.” Vince responds, slowly lowering the hook into the water. “Sorry we didn’t wait for you, so of us were anxious to get to work repaying your kindness. Let everyone know breakfast is on us.”
“And what are you working on?” He asks.
“Aquaponics.” Nimda’s voice announces her arrival, loaded with supplies. “Living beings and plants have a symbiotic relationship, and we can exploit that to give you a steady, stable source of food. Getting sunlight down here will be difficult, but I have a few solutions I would like to run by you. In addition to that, you need filtered water. I’ll be setting up a charcoal filter, and attempting to get power down here if possible.”
“There was a lted power cord running into the ceiling.” I say. “I think there is power generation on the mountaintop, but I don’t know what shape it’s in after the last few storms.”
“I’ll start with that then.” Nimda turns around, followed by Lance and Robin, although Cassie just piles her supplies in the others’ arms and makes her way over to .
“Well, that does sound nice, thank you.” Joseph says.
“If you have anyone interested in engineering, I’m sure Nimda would be willing to explain everything she’s doing.” Vince offers, much to Nimda’s obvious annoyance. “Or if anyone wants to learn to cook, Blue’s gotten pretty good at it. And I’m open to any questions, I’ve learned a lot from a lot of mistakes I can share.”
“If you don’t mind asking, why are you doing all this? It’s more than we asked of you, you’ll have to excuse if I’m a little worried there may be repercussions.”
“No, not at all, I understand.” Vince says. “I’ve seen enough bad in the world to know we need more good. Right now, the most good we can do is to make sure you survive. We’ve got enough resources, and you don’t. Simple as that. Where we’re headed, those resources would do no good and just sit unused for a few weeks.”
“Well, I sincerely hope you’re telling the truth. I’ll go let everyone know.”
“Can you ask people to find and bring any clean bowls they can?” I interrupt before he can leave. “I don’t have enough for everyone.”
“Sure, I’ll let people know.”
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