Original Fiction: The Anarchist's Almanac, Pt 6

Joshua got behind the wheel of the truck with Adam riding in the back with their patient.

*If you missed the last chapter, find it here, the first chapter is here and you can find them all on my blog. *

John, Eugene and Darian headed back to the settling to see what they could find out about the Reaper armor from Kyle. Walton was an hour's drive in the opposite direction, so Joshua and Adam sent word to their families that they would be home some time tomorrow.

Joshua drove as carefully as possible, while maintaining a decent speed. He was having a hard time wrapping his head around what they’d found. It didn’t make sense. They had believed, up until now, that dwellers that were taken by the Reapers were simply relocated and colonized in a Consensus City.

Surely this man had volunteered.

He didn’t like that idea, but anything else was unthinkable. If you believed in the Consensus mission, to consolidate human thought for the “good of the species” why wouldn’t you volunteer?

About five miles outside of Walton, Joshua pulled to the side of the road and flashed the headlights in an agreed-upon signal to let them know it was dwellers coming.

Since they were here about two hours ahead of the team heading back to their own Settling, there was no way to send word ahead that they were coming, and no guarantee that this Consensus vehicle wouldn’t receive a hostile welcome.

They waited.

After what seemed like hours, but Joshua knew to be five minutes, the return signal flashed from the top of a barn about a quarter mile back from the road, and they continued slowly to a point about a half mile outside of town where they were met by two sentries on the side of the road.

“Is that you Claiborne? Where’d you get this ride? Nice.” One of the men said, he was a large, dark complected man named Wayne that Joshua knew from the quarterly council meetings. “Hey, Adam, how are you brother? Who's this?” He indicated the man on the makeshift stretcher.

“We found him inside a Reaper at the grain elevator in Holdenville. He's pretty banged up. We were hoping your doc might be able to help him. He was with Jackson’s tribe until sometime last year when he was taken during a raid,” Joshua explained.

“Inside a Reaper? Shit. What does that mean?” The man with Wayne, who Joshua did not know, asked.

“It was one of those larger new units we’ve been seeing. Apparently, they’re driven by human pilots. It was news to us too.”

Joshua climbed out of the truck and stood watching as the two sentries ran their flashlights around the bed of the truck and looked inside the cab.

As dwellers, you could never be too cautious.

The sentries appeared to be satisfied. “I’ll radio ahead and let Doc know you’re coming. The clinic is parked on the west side of main-street, behind the fire station. We use the backup generator there. Shorty is on duty at this end of Main, but you know her. She'll probably wave you on through.”

Wayne waved as the truck pulled away.

Walton, like most of these Midwest towns, felt like a smaller carbon copy of Holdenville. Instead of a grain elevator at the end of Main Street, the hulking shadow of a long-abandoned furniture factory loomed over the two-block down town.

A stocky woman in black fatigues, carrying some sort of rail gun waved as they passed her station.

By the time they pulled into the lot behind the Fire Station, Doc was waiting with a pair of stout helpers. Doc was an anomaly, with stereotypical African features and dark skin. His family had somehow avoided the forced interbreeding that preceded the Abdication. Most of the residents of North America had a similar appearance, sandy brown to black wavy hair, with medium complexions.

Only a few people still maintained what had once been common racially definable features.

“Joshua, good to see you again. Sorry about the circumstances, let’s see what we can do,” Doc climbed into the back of the truck and nodded to Adam, then began an examination of Vernon, using a head lamp and two large flashlights held by his assistants. “He doesn’t seem to have lost much blood. The blast from whatever it was cauterized the wound. Was he conscious on the way over?”

“I tried to keep him awake, but he passed out right before we met your sentries up on the road,” Adam replied.

Doc checked his watch, “So, around one am. Alright, let’s get him inside and see what we can do.”

The two young men moved to either side of the truck and between the five of them; they lifted Vernon gently out of the truck and up into the large rear doors of the oversized ambulance. Inside there was a ten by twelve operating room, well lit, with cabinets around the walls and a hospital bed in the center.

It had once been a mobile command unit for the resistance during the Abdication. The entire vehicle ran from a hybrid fossil fuel, electric power train that Eugene had helped restore and now ran off of Ethanol produced from hemp.

“Vitals are stable. I’m guessing he’s having a tough time talking because of broken ribs. I can do x-rays, but unless it’s a really simple fix, the only thing I can offer him is time to heal,” Doc said.

Joshua and Adam left the doctor to his work and went with one of the young men to meet with the leaders of the tribe that was now Settling in Walton.

The town had a lot of large commercial basements, which dweller crews had been working to join together for over a year. The idea was that once the downtown business’s basements could be linked, the hidden entrances could provide them enough security for a more permanent settlement.

Since Walton had very little in the way of infrastructure, it had not attracted the same attention as some of the surrounding areas.

Once the plans were complete, there would be room for a dweller settlement of around 100 people. They had modeled it on a dweller Settling six hours south under what had been Brownsville but was now known as New Hope.

New Hope had seventy-five full-time residents and had remained secure for six months since its completion.

When Joshua entered the tribe council offices, three women stood over a desk going over plans.

One broke away and came to greet the visitors. “Joshua, glad to see you. I heard about what you found. That’s troubling. Hi, I’m Jean.” She shook hands with Adam.

“Adam. Pleasure to meet you. I hear good things about the progress you’re making, “ he walked around a small partition in the basement they were in and stood looking at something Joshua couldn’t see from where he was.

“Wow, this is great. When we here last we had just finished digging this. You’re really making progress!”

“Yeah, we were hoping to get onto the Anarchist's Almanac and see what Kyle knew about what we found. Our team should be back at our Settling in about an hour and a half. This is looking good, Jean. I see you achieved the dimensions you wanted, “ Joshua said.

Jean smiled, “Right, we are aiming to be able to drive electric carts from one end of the Settling to the other once it’s complete. We’ve even got a dismantled freight elevator waiting to go in at the furniture factory so we can bring material in faster."

"We just have to put the finishing touches on the floor camouflage for the top of it and then we can start installation.”

Jean turned away from the tunnel and walked across to the other side of the basement and opened a door that led to another similar corridor that was already complete.

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