|
“It’s cold” Salem remarks, watching her cloudy breaths flutter through the air with every breath she takes whilst her eyes fixate on the snow-covered leaves of the nearby treeline. “It’s winter, that’s kind of the point” a man replies, wielding a rifle similar to his acquaintance whilst wearing a heavy coat and thick toque, his pale face stained by rosy red cheeks.
“I know that, jackass” Salem replies, her denim coat unzipped and the break of her black jeans tucked into her heavy boots, which sit within five inches of snow. “Why mention that it’s cold then?” the woman’s unassuming colleague retorts, uncertain of the complaint’s point, “or, at least, why mention it to me? I can’t change the weather.” “I’m just complaining for the sake of it, dude” Salem replies, rolling her eyes as her side leans against the remnants of a rundown sedan, its paint-chipped body covered in a mountain of fluffy, wintery mix. “We’ve got another five hours on this shift, do you really think I wanna spend it all in silence?” she persists, the lack of an answer she receives prompting her to think quietly amongst herself, “well, I suppose I wouldn’t mind it.” “I’ve never taken you to be the social type” the warm-clothed survivor accompanying the woman on her guard duties responds, sitting on a level of a nearby scaffold, its metal supports rusted and individual platforms dirty and wet. “That’s ‘cause I’m not” Salem replies, the first two fingers on her left hand tapping against her weapon’s trigger guard, “sometimes I’d just prefer not to be alone with my thoughts, that’s all.” “Would I be in danger if you were?” the man asks back, trying to make light of the rather gloomy comment with a half-hearted attempt at humour, only for his efforts to go unnoticed. “No, probably not” Salem responds, passing a look at him for a moment before reuniting her line of sight with the forest ahead, lips pressing shut to keep quiet so as not to disturb the man a few yards off behind her. With a squint in her eye, the woman’s attention sets upon the undisturbed woodlands, her ears catching the distant calls of crows hiding within it whilst her skin is kissed by the frigid winds that ruffle through the leaves. “I left something out there the other day- while I was out with Rob- and I’m gonna go check on it really quick” Salem remarks, a gentle push off the vehicle allowing her to begin stepping through the snow that sits between herself and the forest. “You’re not supposed to leave the post” the man she prepares to leave behind, even if for only a moment, responds. “We’re not supposed to do a lot of different things that everyone ends up doing, man” Salem replies, squawking over her shoulder as she ventures further into the terrain typically deemed off limits, “just sit tight and I’ll be back in a few.” “What did you leave out there?” the man quickly wonders back, watching the woman stop in her tracks and roll her eyes, turning toward her colleague with a dismissive gleam in her eyes. “So now you wanna chat?” Salem retorts, not allowing the man an opportunity to answer the question she’d asked sarcastically, “just sit tight and I’ll be back in a second or two. You won’t even notice I’m gone.” Though he doesn’t like the concept of being split up against the compound’s orders, the pale-skinned, rifle-wielding guard stationed atop the modest scaffolding has little choice but to oblige to the desires voiced by the free-spirited survivor he watches wander into the frost-bitten abyss. Within minutes, the headstrong woman finds herself deep within the woodlands, her back held toward the way she’d entered from not long ago. Each step that crunches upon a layer of untouched snow prompting birds hidden within the snow-covered branches above to fly off for safer pastures, Salem carries on with her descent into the relentlessly frost-bitten unknown, terrain she’d never once travelled now surveyed and experienced without a pair of arms to fall into. Keeping a tight hold of her weapon, the woman’s progression carries onward, the passing gusts of wind that get caught on the open flaps of her coat threatening to halt her at every instance. Defiant and unwilling to compromise with the elements, Salem continues to brave the unfamiliar ground and conditions so unforgiving that they appear motivated, looking farther into the chasm that lies ahead, its fluff-hidden path lit only by the dawn of a new day just beginning to come upon Nova Scotia. Without a second soul to speak to or another friend to call for in the need of help, Salem’s each step carries her into deeper grounds, the path beginning to dip in spite of the snow appearing to rise another inch at each passing metre. Impossible to differentiate from the crisp chill of the arctic, Nova Scotia’s air surrounds the woman and bites at every last shred of exposed flesh, refusing to grant her a comfortable travel onward. Her cold fingers grasping her rifle tighter, Salem watches a pile of snow fall from atop a branch that had become too weak to prop up what had compiled atop it, snapping free and hanging by the tree it’d come from as the snow creates a cloud on its way toward the ground. Her ears catching little more than the sound of winds violently whipping past her, the wandering trooper carries onward, the snow’s level reaches her thighs, rising up them like the frost-bitten hands of a poor romantic. Though they sit barren of the leaves they present in warmer seasons, the trees that stand before the sniper’s vision are so abundant and undisturbed that they block anything within the near distance. The boundaries of the woodlands that Salem’s eyes cannot see because of the cold fog that prevents her sights from laying upon distant views covered in the second layer of forest that litter the field ahead of her. As her groyne now hovers over the snow, a reluctant Salem accepts the terms of reality that occupy the forefront of her mind, the snow ahead of her having become too deep to safely traverse. Her body cold and hands shaking, the woman presses her teeth together and starts hissing the hottest breaths she can conjure, trying to warm her lips as she turns back, coming to grips with the fact that her travels have ended well before she’d wished for them to. With his eye pressed to the top of his own rifle, a man perched in a nearby tree watches the defeated Nova Scotian turn back for home, a sigh of relief carried through his mouth. “She’s turning back” he remarks, keeping his voice just low enough for the man in a nearby branch to hear, his weapon having already lowered from their potential discoverer. “Good” the second man replies, tightening the hold his winter cap has, its warm materials hugging his head snug, shielding him from the frosty teeth the winter air bites at him with. Retreating, Salem slowly digs her feet out of the snow repeatedly, carrying herself to higher ground with a half-smirk on her face. Lips chapped and strands of her hair having been soaked by the snow and frozen into ice by the late-seasonal air, she proceeds back before coming to a momentary pause. “Man, what the hell were you thinking? Snapping that branch like that, what’s wrong with you!?” one of the treetop men remarks, presenting the question to his contemporary with the tone of a disheartened father, “don’t you know how fucked we would’ve been if you’d blown our cover?” “Of course I do. What else did you expect me to do?” the second man replies, the toque he’s meant to wear atop his head instead laid upon his bent knee, which soon feels the graze of his rifle’s barrel. “I didn’t have a line of sight or a good shot on her from behind this damn trunk” man number two continues, shaking his head as his eyes take toward his side, “if I didn’t move, we wouldn’t have had eyes on-” Ducking at the sound of a gunshot ringing through the air, the toque-wearing survivor shields his face for a moment before feeling the weight of the tree he stands within decrease. Eyes passing to the side, the survivor watches his friend’s feet plummet to the ground below, joining his body in collapsing into the puffy, white snow face-up. With widened eyes, the living survivor uncovers his face and looks at the ground below, staring into the whites of his friend’s eyes as the wintery mix he lays buried within begins to run red from the blood that escapes a bullet wound in the back of his head. Realising what’s come of his friend and soon to come of himself, the living survivor jumps to the side at the sound of a second gunshot, hearing the bullet barely miss him before he quickly loses balance. Losing possession of his firearm, the cold-acclimated survivor reaches for whatever branches his eyes can find to no avail, the fall back to earth unimpeded by his desperate efforts. Standing in the middle of ankle-deep snow, Salem watches the defenceless man crater through the air and disappear within the mountain of snow she’s aware is too deep for her to venture through. Passing a glance over her shoulder, Salem’s eyes wander in the direction of her Nova Scotian home before the sound of a third gunshot- this time one in which she did not fire- whirls through the air violently. Gritting her teeth, the woman holds her rifle to the side as a litany of additional bullets are fired off, all aiming for her direction from various directions. With her back turned to the pair of men she’d fired at, Salem hurries for whatever cover she can find, only able to depend on her movement within the moment, trying to ensure she’s too difficult of a target to hit. Knowing the bullets to have stolen enough of the attention off of himself, the living treetop survivor slowly digs out of the hole his body’s weight had formed in an effort to return to fresh air. Flailing his arms around, the man’s efforts soon drag him to the snow’s surface, finding enough to push himself upward and catch the briefest sight of his attacker fleeing in the opposite direction. “Fuck!” Salem grunts, her right knee slamming into the snow as the bullet that rips through her left calf muscle prevents her from continuing to put up a chase. Shielding her head, the woman removes one arm from beside her face and uses it to reclaim her rifle, firing a shot off at random in the direction of the nearest bullet. Still amidst his struggle to fully return to the snow’s surface, the snow-covered survivor crawls to the body of his colleague, frozen hands rummaging the corpse in search of what he whimpers for. “Wallet! Wallet! I need your wallet!” he hisses repeatedly, reaching into the man’s pocket whilst pleading for the leather-bound belonging, hoping the man would be alive just enough to point him in the direction of it. “Ah!” a random shooter in the distance grunts, prompting the wallet-seeking survivor to look up, watching a body plummet from the same tree that a second body collapses from soon after. “I need your wallet! Where’s your fucking wallet!?” he shouts again, his teeth clattering together as he scrambles with all that he can muster, his fingers too cold to properly move as they’re desired to, beginning to pick up the urgency at the sight of return fire. “Salem!” a voice calls out from the forest’s entrance, a set of fast-moving lights trailing not too far behind himself. “Get help! Now!” the woman screams back, throwing herself behind the cover of a small rock, laying on her back so as to conceal herself as best as she can. Covered from one side, Salem peers into the distance of the forest as blood pours from her leg excessively, aware that reinforcements are on their way as she takes aim at whatever seems out of place. “Where’s your fucking wallet!?” the living survivor pleads, fumbling around the winter coat his deceased partner wears, unable to get his fingers to cooperate with his intentions, the many zippers that line the hefty clothing unable to be undone. Firing off another shot, Salem forces another one of the ambushing survivors to fall from their tree, their weapon plummeting into the snow alongside them, but away from immediate reach. The nearing sound of motors roaring behind her, the wounded guard at Nova Scotia’s defence calls out orders to those arriving at her aid, “I’ve got people on my left! They’re in the trees!” she exclaims, keeping her aim toward her right side. “Let’s get you out of here!” one of the men on a snowmobile calls out, stopping the winter vehicle whilst his colleague carries on, driving into the open with an automatic rifle and peppering the sound of gunfire with bullets of his own. “No!” Salem exclaims, pushing the man that tries to aid her upward away before hurrying back the way she’d initially journeyed, her rifle taking aim at the man struggling to move. Pressing his teeth together with great force, the fallen survivor, whose palms are too cold to process the materials they touch, stares back at the woman he’d initially been fired at by, the hurry she takes toward him not impeding her ability to reach for the rifle at her side. “No!” he exclaims, still too deep within the snow to scurry away, defenceless from the rifle whose barrel takes toward him, “no!” With the pull of her trigger, Salem fires a round through the survivor’s head and kills the toque-wearing survivor, his misery ended, and yet his search is continued. As if the fluffy mixture were water, the rifle-wielding woman tosses her firearm to the side and dives into the snow that had originally been too deep for her to traverse, digging through the soft slush in an effort of reaching the corpses she’d laid to rest. “Salem, what are you doing!?” the man she’d been stationed at the wall’s front alongside exclaims, firing into the distance as the gunshots begin centring back upon the already-wounded survivor. Without response, Salem digs through the snow to clear herself a path, refusing to let up until she’d reached the bodies’ final resting places. Whilst his depleting crew fire at both the stubbornly defiant Salem and those that had come to her aid, one man holds his fire and steadies his aim, wanting to make his shot count. Narrowing his line of sight, the man lets his finger softly rest against the trigger as his barrel takes aim at the persistent woman with a wound in her calf, her head fully within his sights and aim. Keeping his hold on the weapon steady, the gunman holds his fire and ensures his barrel travels with her every move, waiting until he’s confident enough in his ability to not miss before trying anything. Finally within reach of the corpses, Salem’s struggle through the snow comes to a stop, and her head’s violent and unpredictable movements cease in favour of steadying, allowing her eyes to follow the hand of the second man she’d hit with a perfect headshot. Stiffening his finger, the man whose aim the woman unknowingly finds herself caught within touches the trigger as a shot bellows throughout the forest, no different from the abundance of others that had spent the last few minutes scaring every bird away from the area. Passing a glance to the side as her hand falls upon the pocket of the first corpse’s coat, Salem watches a body plummet from a tree head-first, a trail of blood falling after him alongside the weapon his hands release. Ducking below a small hill formed within the snow alongside her, Salem unzips the first corpse’s coat pocket and retrieves the wallet his acquaintance had spent so long struggling to find. Turning back, the woman uses the room within the snow she’d been buried within to pull her arm back and send the leather-bound accessory flying through the air, her commendable accuracy allowing the piece to fall at the feet of her fellow fortress-overseer. “Take that and go!” Salem exclaims, still using the adrenaline of the moment to let her mind forget about the wound that spills a trail of blood in her path, willing to die beyond the same walls she’d so eagerly yearned to be set free of. Reaching down for the wallet, the cover-ducking man tucks it into his back pocket as a third snowmobile hurries past him, venturing for the direction of the woman who soon reclaims her rifle. Aware of the woman’s history, the third man refuses to grant the altercation’s source a choice of where her final moments are spent, instead taking the woman by the throat and dragging her onto the vehicle. “Let go of me!” Salem grunts, trying to squirm free of her fellow Nova Scotian’s grasp as the ground beneath her begins to move, her body carried in his arms as he directs the vehicle back toward the compound. “I’ve got the wallet, don’t worry!” the woman’s partner barks, wanting to leave her little room to hesitate, departing the scene of chaos as she’s dragged back toward the community. Barely able to hear the man’s reassurance, Salem’s struggle begins to relent, and she slowly begins to accept the assistance of those who’d hurried out to her side. As the adrenaline begins to wane, the woman’s teeth begin to press together at the pain in her leg, the rest of her body beginning to wear her soreness. = Rise is created by Zachary Serra, all rights to the series belong to Zachary Serra and the entity of Pacer1 from the start of Season 3 onwards = Squinting her eyes whilst seated at a desk, Lauren twists a thin piece of metal around a long bar she’s fitted into a drill, winding it into a screw whilst her husband finishes doing the same nearby. Keeping to themselves, the married couple carry on with their individual efforts in silence, sitting beneath their respective desk lamps whilst embracing the warmth that emanates from a pair of space heaters they’re within the pathway of. One after another, they twist thin rods of metal around a bar and slide them off with ease, letting the newly-crafted coils sit off to the side with a pile of equally-spun, soon-to-be links of chain. Passing a glance off to a nearby piece of paper, Jack’s eyes take toward the pile of loops he’d made and begins organising them into groups of ten, eventually counting his way up to eighty seven. “You wouldn’t waste so much time counting the things if you’d just organise them from the start” Lauren remarks, a smirk held in her face as she eyes the man sitting a few metres off to her right. With an amused look of sarcastic displeasure, Jack pulls his sights away from the next bar he’d intended to coil and lets his hands fall to the desk he sits at, eyes fully setting upon the woman he’d committed himself to with the binding power of a wedding ring. “And how many bars have you spun?” Jack questions aloud, watching the woman’s hand gently pat the table once for every row of coils she’d produced. After a few seconds, Lauren confidently turns toward her husband with a smile that soon fades, her eyes retaking to the twisted pieces of metal that she forces herself to recount, uncertain as to whether or not her initial tally had been correct. “And now you see how far-” Jack replies, his efforts thwarted as he’s kept from finishing his retort by the sound of a knock at the closed garage door. With his eyebrows furrowed, the man steps out from behind his desk and reclaims the firearm he’d left resting beside him, holstering it on his waist whilst his wife quietly removes her own from the drawer of the desk she occupies. “You’ve reached the home of Jack O’Rourke and Lauren O’Rourke, who and how may I help?” the man greets, placing the side of his head against the cold entrance’s metal surface. Always hesitant, the couple run through their usual process, the husband speaking to those on the outside whilst his wife sneaks toward a stepladder off to the side, allowing her to climb a set of levels high enough to see the parties on the other side through a set of narrow windows. “Your boss” a familiar woman’s voice replies from the other side, putting a reluctance over the hesitant face of Jack, whose eyes take toward his ascending wife for clarity. With widened eyelids, Lauren looks at the person standing in the cold, Canadian weather awaiting a reply, having arrived with a group of four armoured cars. Only able to see the top of their visitor’s head, the newly-recoloured blonde hairs give the woman a sneaking suspicion that their visitor is the undesired kind. “I think it’s Charlotte” Lauren whispers as quietly as she can, though her hiss-like tone is incapable of escaping the ears of the compound’s leader. “Bingo” Charlotte doubles down from the other end of the garage, her knuckles tapping against its exterior for a second time as she requests entry, “hurry up and open this thing- it’s cold out.” As if momentarily blinded by a rage that discourages common sense, Jack’s hand instinctively reaches for the weapon on his hip whilst his wife closes in, quickly approaching his side. “What do you wanna do?” she murmurs in so low of a voice that she’d barely done more than move her lips, unable to receive an answer from the man for the first few seconds. “Open the door” Charlotte interjects, having pressed the side of her head against the makeshift-workshop’s entrance and listened in through the thin materials. “I’m in charge of this place, so I’ll find another way inside if you really force me to” she doubles down, unzipping the winter coat that’s thin in comparison to those other residents would wear, and shedding it as if she weren’t just used to the bitter chill in the air, but were fond of it. Biting his tongue, Jack aids his wife in pulling the entrance open, throwing it upward once raised high enough and looking into the face of a woman whose sight makes his blood boil- even in the frigid temperatures he now exposes their home to. “But yeah, this was definitely the option you and your honey would’ve preferred” Charlotte remarks, continuing the line of speech the garage’s opening had interrupted, “it’s a good thing you chose it.” “What do you want?” Lauren wonders aloud, aware that her husband’s paralysation of reason has rendered him incapable of having the conversation she now must bear, watching as the woman steps into their shared workshop. “Well, I’d like for it to be summertime again. It’d be nice not to spend so much energy sending people out to clear the streets and dig cars out of mini-Mt. Everist’s” Charlotte replies, letting her t-shirt-laiden arms hang by each side, “but you two can’t control that.” Standing in the workshop’s centre, the compound’s leader stares at the married couple with a smile, inspecting each of their visage’s without letting up on her purposefully-shallow expression of pleasure. Looking into the eyes of Lauren, the visitor finds a concerned woman who can’t help but worry that this interaction will only lead to strife, though the fear that she holds is hidden behind a thick layer of feigned confidence, one used in the hope that it’ll prevent the anxiety from discovery. Nodding at the woman, Charlotte’s eyes take to her unlawfully-wedded, his expression nothing less than the polar opposite of his perceived better half. His face holding back an anger that he knows is inappropriate for the circumstance, Jack’s eyes contain a mask of rage that had never been fully allowed to slip or be set aside, the bitter hatred he has for the presence of the woman across from him as clear as day, and unlike that of his wife, isn’t even cared enough to be stowed away. “I heard that the two of you had quite the setup over here” Charlotte remarks, nodding to herself before turning around, her back shown to those whose company she resides within. “I had a member of my guardsmen- a rather high-ranking one, at that- come to me with this suit of chainmail armour he’d purchased from the two of you” she continues, surveying the scene she stands within, fully aware of the kind of people she’s turned away from, “he’d mentioned something interesting to me.” “What is that?” Lauren wonders aloud, watching the woman briefly glimpse back toward her amidst a pause, clearly eager to end this visitation as quickly as she can. Feeling the haste in the woman’s remark, Charlotte stares off at the garage’s depths before her eyes stumble upon a coffee maker in the back of the room. “Does that thing work?” she wonders aloud, pointing in the direction of a jumbled mess of items, different machines and belongings stored off to the side and out of the way, “does that coffee maker work?” “No, it’s broken” Lauren replies, her response prompting the Nova Scotian leader to squint her eyes and smirk. “So, have you just not gotten around to unplugging it?” Charlotte wonders aloud, an eyebrow raised as she begins walking toward the room’s back, each step she takes proving too great of bait for Jack’s expression to not sour over. “Stop” Lauren interrupts, prompting the woman to cease the steps she’d taken toward the machine, even closer to the room’s actual centre than she’d initially been standing within. Aware of her husband’s best attempt at keeping from exploding with a violent temper in the name of revenge, the home’s more ‘of sound mind’ resident voices her own displeasure for the visitation. “Please explain why you’re here and leave” Lauren requests, making her desire to see the Nova Scotian ruler’s departure clear and well-stated, “we don’t appreciate you showing up unannounced. We don’t appreciate you being here any longer than you’ve already been, and we’d like you to leave. So, please tell us what you came here to say and go back to wherever you came from.” With an eyebrow raised, Charlotte looks at the woman who’d spoken to her with such eloquence before taking her eyes toward the man standing beside her. His temper clearly kept at bay for the moment, Jack notices the humoured expression begin to conceal itself well upon his guest’s face, though it's apparent enough for him to notice. “Is that what you’d like?” Charlotte wonders back, looking at the visibly-angry man with a smile in the corner of her face before an unwelcome voice begins to answer her. “Yes, that’s what we’d-” Lauren replies, only for the subject of her response to shake her head and lift a finger in her direction, knowingly contributing to the tensions that stir within the cold garage. “Not you. If I was asking you, I would’ve looked at you” Charlotte reiterates, refusing the woman’s response before redirecting her gaze toward the man she knows to be too spiteful to answer with niceties, “no, I want to hear what Mr. Lauren Salcedo has to say.” Nostrils flaring, Jack stares into the woman’s eyes as she begins to traipse across the ground once more, walking slowly for the direction of himself and his wife. “After all, I’m here to talk business. The gentleman here is half of that same business I’m here to talk about, so what fun can we have if his wife is doing all the talking?” Charlotte doubles down, closing the gap between herself and the fiery husband, a wag of her chin paid toward him, “I’m sure he can speak for himself.” Lips pressed together as they had been since the workshop was opened for the fresh air of the cold, winter afternoon, Jack stares at the woman that soon stops approaching him, only a few metres truly parting their bodies. Ever the antagonist, Charlotte winks at the man whose composed guise begins rapidly slipping, acting as an added source of heat to assist already-boiling water in not only falling over the edge, but clearing it entirely. With the vein in his forehead appearing within his skin, Jack reaches to his hip and frees the pistol from within his own holster, taking the barrel between the eyes of Nova Scotia’s leader. Retrieving their own rifles one after another, the convoy their leader had arrived with take immediate aim at the man holding their commander at gunpoint, though this act fails to intimidate the woman it’s meant to strike fear within, as Charlotte’s smile only deepens, her expression flushed with glee. | “Don’t feel sorry” Courtney remarks, shrugging as she lifts a bottled beer to her lips, a smile worn as she pauses to finish her thought, “I’ve used the ‘I’ve got friends in high places card’ plenty of times. It’s almost a right of passage at this point.” Lifting his eyebrows, Emilio looks back to the plate sitting in front of him, his right hand returning the glass of water to the side of his plate, which allows an as-of-yet untouched burger to tempt the man’s eyes and pallet. “Yeah sure, ‘right of passage’ my ass” Juliet retorts, sitting an unopened beer bottle beside the one Courtney had already nearly finished, which itself sits beside the bottle opener the bartender had left for her patron to use, “how else do you think she gets bottles while everyone else gets their beer in a glass?” “I’m not even sure how you managed to snag glass beer bottles, let alone have any to give her” Emilio replies, shaking his head as he looks at the burger his hands soon claim, “but Juliet, I’ve learned over the last few months to never doubt you. So, however you went about acquiring them, I’m just going to trust that you made sure there were no witnesses.” Nudging the man’s shoulder with her balled fist, the bartender gives him a wink and begins marching back toward the kitchen. “Ever the flirt, Emilio. Yes, you are!” Juliet sarcastically remarks, dipping into the back to man the grill once more as the man she speaks to give her a quick salute. For the next few seconds, the only sounds that come over the counter-sitting pair of colleagues are the noises of a louder dining room than the one that had been present when they’d first met. One side of the room now lined with various billiards tables, dartboards, a ping pong table and a set of foam throwing axe boards, the other is saddled with various booths and tables, of which all are occupied by at least two people. “So what else did you do with your night?” Courtney wonders aloud, taking another sip of her beer whilst Emilio chews his second bite of the burger, “we didn’t see each other after we split up yesterday. What’d you do after you got back to the warehouse?” Shaking his head as he waves his hand dismissively, Emilio refuses any notion of having spent his evening any other way than he usually does. “Same thing, different day. That’s all” he answers, taking a napkin from the holder that reflects the sunlight that shines through the clouds, falling upon the snow-covered streets of society’s last stand, “I went home, I put on a Beatles record, kicked my feet up and fell asleep in my recliner.” Snapping her fingers as her arm zips through the air with a purposefully-animated display of disappointment, Courtney sets her beer down with the opposite hand and playfully picks on her friend’s lack of social life. “I was hoping for some raunchy tale of you falling in love with some dude from the bar- one that’s not this one- and needing to follow your heart or some fairytale bullshit like that” she jokes, wiping her bottom lip with her thumb, “or saving a kid from a burning building.” “No. No kids in burning buildings, no cats stuck in trees, and no gay love found in some back alley tavern” Emilio replies, dismissing the woman’s claims as the amusing fallacies they are, “I saw one weirdo right after you left, drove away and carried on with my night.” “That man probably has a heart that would break if he found out you called him a weirdo” Courtney jokes once more, this time earning a noticeable laugh from her friend, forcing him to pause amidst his efforts of taking another bite from his meal. “That guy didn’t seem like he had a soul, let alone a heart” Emilio rebukes, smiling at the woman as he finishes his thought, following it by sinking his teeth into the patty once more, “plus he’s the opposite of who I’d associate myself with.” “Really? That bad?” Courtney responds, a squint carried in her face as she watches the man gorge himself on the cheese and bacon-covered patty, “in this world? Nah, I don’t believe it.” Shrugging, Emilio lets his doubling-down posture do all the speaking his full mouth cannot, setting the burger down once more before running a paper napkin over the grease-coated corners of his mouth. “When people blabber on about sparking a revolution, you tend to just wave them off and carry on with your day” Emilio replies, listening to the guttural laugh that leaves his acquaintance as she reaches for her beer yet again. “I mean, it definitely threw me off that he knew about my friends and I, but it’s not something I’m foreign to” he proceeds, continuing to speak whilst Courtney leaves him the floor, “the revolution talk is something I’m foreign to, but being recognised isn’t.” “Well you used to be in politics, right? It makes sense that he’d know who you were” Courtney replies, unsure of the point behind the others, “the rest of your group weren’t politicians though, right?” “Franklin was my running mate. My husband was in public a lot when I was mayor, but he wasn’t really involved in the legislation aspect that much” Emilio replies, tossing a french fry into his mouth, “but the others weren’t. Alicia and Lauren were in school, I’m pretty sure Salem was a pilot, Jack worked in a warehouse, and I’ve still got no real idea what the hell Clint and Nessie did before we met.” Though the pieces don’t add up, Courtney dismisses the man just as Emilio does, remaining mute on the topic in spite of holding a litany of questions her friend lacks the ability to answer. “It’s crazy, though. I thought Charlotte had said the people in here were never told about John and us. At least, I could’ve sworn that’s what she said” the burger-enjoying resident continues, finally speaking aloud something that prompts his acquaintance to squint her eyes, “I guess not.” “What do you mean?” Courtney wonders aloud, unsure of whether or not she’s on the same line of thought as her colleague is, “I don’t know that anyone here knows it was you and the others that took down the place in New York. For fucks sake, it took me, like, a year before Charlotte even told me.” “Well, why did this guy know who we were?” Emilio responds, the dismissive and nonchalant attitude he’d spent nearly the last full day treating the interaction with beginning to subside. “I don’t know, how the hell am I supposed to know?” Courtney retorts, defending her insight- or lack thereof- into the discourse she’s only now being informed of, “did you get this guy's name or what he wanted from you?” “Yeah, it was Andrew something” Emilio responds, looking off to the side as his hands press to each side of his forehead, unaware of the widening eyes his friend reacts with as he searches for the name sitting on his tongue’s tip, “Gamble! It was Andrew Gamble.” Her lips just barely parted, Courtney looks into the face of the man that soon turns toward her, taking immediate notice of the shock that comes over her awestruck visage. Silent, Emilio stares at the indescribable expression that holds toward him, only able to read the motivations of fear and dread in her eyes. “And I’m going to assume you already know who he is and there’s something very wrong with him?” Emilio doubles down, trying to use whatever light-hearted enthusiasm he can muster to ease the woman from the stiff and rigid presentation she’d responded to him with. “Don’t ever talk to that man again” Courtney replies, instantly breaking from her apparent code of silence the moment her friend’s remark comes to a halt, an obvious sincerity held behind her words. “Well, I think I made it rather clear that I wasn’t planning to” Emilio replies, still holding the youthful pep within his words, trying to mellow the space shared between himself and his friend, “he gave me the creeps anyway. Seems like a dude that doesn’t socialise.” Falling silent the moment his wrists are taken into the grasp of his business partner’s hands, Emilio looks into the woman’s eyes and awaits her remarks, aware that there is something on her mind she wishes to speak, though she’s yet to fully flesh them out and into words. “I’ll try to explain what I can at some other time, but right now I need you to tell me exactly what he said to you” Courtney declares, her voice kept to a minimum as her stare grows even more intense, “leave nothing out.” | “Drop the weapon!” a man at the front of the convoy commands, his weapon aimed at the back of whom holds the woman’s fate within the reach of his trigger. “No, sir. I’m afraid there’s no need for that” Charlotte retorts, refusing the efforts of her subordinates in spite of the barrel that she spends what could be her final moments staring past, looking into the concentrated eyes of the man whose finger resides within mere centimetres from ending her life. “Mrs. Walters, I’m-” the commander of the ruler’s private security rebukes, kept from speaking any further by the hand that extends past the side of the man holding her at gunpoint. “You’re paid by me to serve whatever purpose it is that I wish for you to. As far as I’m concerned, that includes speaking when spoken to” Charlotte interjects, her passing glance toward the security detail soon returning to the man standing across from her, “I command that you- all of you- lower your weapons.” Reluctant, the man tasked with providing for the Nova Scotian ruler’s every command is forced between a rock and a hard place, the woman he’s sworn to protect now demanding that he do just the opposite. “If you really wanna be given the chance to do this, you might as well let me make sure they give you some room for error” Charlotte whispers aloud, allowing the man who tempts her fate to hear as she steps past, approaching the crew she’s commanded to step down. “If you open fire on what you cannot see, you run the risk of shooting me dead” Charlotte proclaims, stepping to the workshop’s front and reaching for the garage door, “so you are all to hold your fire until this door is opened back up. When it is, you are to remain holding your fire until I tell you otherwise. If anybody fires a shot before then- I’ll have you hanged.” Leaving her troops no other option, Charlotte forcefully pulls the door down of her own volition, sealing herself within the chainmail workshop she’d only intended to visit for a short time. “Why did you do that?” Lauren wonders aloud, asking the question to the same woman that expected nothing less than that being the opening inquiry. Locking the garage’s entrance into place, Charlotte casually strolls back to the spot in which she’d initially stood, allowing herself to be held at gunpoint with a nonchalant smile on her face. “Reason number one is as follows- because I could” the Nova Scotian figurehead replies, letting her arms sway freely by each side, refusing to present either survivor with the faintest sight of hostility, “reason number two is as follows- because we can’t actually talk business until we settle this.” “There’s nothing to settle. You know what you did” Jack replies, watching the grin on the face of the woman he has every reason to kill only increase with his remarks. “Correct. I do know what I did. I took a group of my guards to a warehouse because I needed to know where to find John” Charlotte responds, only beginning her recollection, “John didn’t have any current address on his military records, so I went to his wife’s workplace and found it through her. You lot were there too.” “You tried to kill Tyler. You tried to kill all of us” Jack responds, his claim left unrefuted by the woman he torments with his firearm, “I don’t know why John let you go, but I should’ve never given him the chance.” Tucking her hands into the pockets on her camo pants, Charlotte nods along with all of her aggressor’s comments, allowing them to be voiced and left to linger, aware of the undertones provided by the fact that she’s still yet to be sentenced to death. “Yup. I did all of that” the woman responds, shrugging her shoulders as she shakes her head, passing a look toward Lauren, who splits her sights between the man she loves and the leader she fears he’s about to take unrecoverable action against. “I didn’t pull the trigger, but my men certainly put two-face on the verge of death. I nearly killed the lot of you, and yeah- it caught me by surprise that the Cowboy just sent me on my way” Charlotte responds, again shrugging, “so kill me.” With wide eyes, Lauren’s stare darts toward the Nova Scotian leader whilst her husband’s remain unchanged, his anger-filled visage keeping as steady as the hand he aims the gun with. “I’m a menace to society, you practically said it there yourself. You and John and the others were all so much better off without me. You lot kept that place running in tip top shape” Charlotte doubles down, the sarcasm in her voice beginning to grow obvious, “and clearly this place won’t be affected by my death.” “Yes it would” Lauren interrupts, watching the compound’s leader glare in her direction, “yes, Jack- it definitely would.” “Of course it would. The economy would crash, there’d be a power vacuum left in my wake, and the things under the surface that aren’t so pretty would bubble to the top and make a big fucking mess. Hell, this place would probably crumble within two weeks, but at least Jack would have gotten his revenge” Charlotte replies, the words she speaks implying this entire altercation is as ridiculous as the words she utters, “that’s what’s important, isn’t it Jack? You and your revenge.” “This isn’t about me. It’s about what you did- about who you hurt” Jack reiterates, clearly speaking from a place within his mind that’s rooted itself within a deep and well-guarded vendetta. “Of course it is. This has nothing to do with you. This is all about Tyler, and Janice, and Reggie, and Shauna. This is about them” Charlotte retorts, her voice carrying the most obvious hint of sarcasm yet, “and getting revenge for them is way more important than looking after Lauren, right?” Keeping his mouth shut, Jack stares at the woman he’s waited years to hold in this position whilst his wife watches on in equal silent, waiting for the discourse to subside however it will, unable to truly influence it without being talked down by either party. “All of those people are dead. They’re really fucking dead. They’re so dead that they’re yesterday’s news” Charlotte pokes, “but getting revenge for them is worth ruining Nova Scotia. It’s worth sending the missus out into the cold.” “Jack, please” Lauren murmurs aloud, not feeling the need to say anything more than that, believing that her husband can fill in the blanks that she leaves for him to inspect. “Yes, Jack. Please tell Lauren how important it is that you put a bullet in my head. Tell her how it’ll bring your friends back from the dead and finally make right on what I’d done to them” Charlotte replies, reaching for a stool she soon takes a seat upon, unphased by the situation she’s surrounded by. “You deserve to die. You don’t know what we had to go through out there. You don’t realise what it was like in those first few weeks” Jack rebukes, his steady arm wearing the veins presented from his tight grip on the weapon. “It was a miracle that Tyler made it at all. All of those sleepless nights worrying he’d stop breathing. All of those days where I thought it was my fault for what happened” he continues, “what you did to Janice, what you did to John, it was-” “It was unforgivable. Yeah, I agree. That’s why I’ve never asked for forgiveness. And not for nothing, but I couldn’t fucking care less whether or not you gave it to me” Charlotte replies, still as carefree as the second she’d stepped foot in the workshop, “but I’ve said it since before you lot took New York down, and I’ll say it until I’m dead- which could be at any second thanks to you- I was right. John was wrong, I was right, and people had to die en masse to prove that.” Letting the air settle, Charlotte pauses for a moment before hanging her head, letting her index and middle fingers press together and rub against the side of her head. “But let’s not pretend like you and your friend haven’t already done worse by now” she proceeds, having allowed her past to be dug into, and now taking the opportunity to do much the same, “it wasn’t just the people in New York that your actions got killed, it was the people in Sheol, and the people in Sun City.” “No one’s perfect” Jack replies, aware of how poor that defence is, but admitting within himself that he has no better. “So why is it that I am the one standing trial here?” Charlotte quickly retorts, not allowing the off-hand and lazy excuse go unnoticed, “don’t even bother answering that question. The answer is a lot simpler than anything you could answer it with. I’m standing trial because this is all about how you never got the chance to take me out yourself.” Aware of how little his last poorly-attempted reply was, Jack chooses to remain silent this time around, instead opting to let the woman continue speaking whilst holding his weapon upon her. “Janice and John would’ve loved this shot, but they’re not alive to actually take it like you are. That’s why this is happening. The only way this ends is by you killing me right here, or you finally getting the chance to choose to put the gun down. There’s no third option.” Whilst his teeth press together, Jack looks into Charlotte’s unimpressed eyes whilst his ears catch the various voices beyond the locked garage door chatter amongst each other, all as uncertain over what’s unfolding as part of himself is. “On one hand, you can shoot me and the guys outside that door will do with you whatever it is they’ll do with you” the woman continues, able to make a sophisticated guess over how that option will play out. “I’ll die and they’ll probably arrest you. You’ll be hanged, but Lauren will probably be allowed to walk free. You’ll get to say a goodbye before they pull the floor out from beneath you- literally- and she’ll watch you die. How romantic” Charlotte chirps, carrying on, “then, Nova Scotia will fall into disrepair, a man who you don’t need to know about will sever communications from Prince Edward Island, and the people will rise and revolt. This will all fall into the hands of chaos.” “But there’s another option” Lauren interjects, again finding herself cut off by the remarks that the Nova Scotian overseer doubles down on, speaking into detail just as she had with the prior point. “Yes. You can choose to put that gun down, move on with your life and stop keeping yourself up at night with regret over not killing me when you had the chance” Charlotte concludes, crossing her arms in anticipation, “you can move on, care for your wife, and live out your days satisfied.” “For the love of god, Jack. Please put the gun down” Lauren remarks, her pleas made as the talkie on Charlotte’s hip begins to fill the air, an unfamiliar voice to them calling for her immediate response. “We’ve seen worse than what she’s done to us. The least she can do is keep this place running so we don’t have to fight for every meal all over again. And she can’t do that when she’s dead” Jack’s voice of reason proceeds, “make her pay us back by having to keep this place running.” “That’s one way of looking at it, but sure- it applies all the same” Charlotte confesses, shrugging her shoulders as she reaches for the talkie, responding to the voice on the other end as Jack turns his attention toward his wife. With weighted eyes, the man drowns out the voice of the Nova Scotian forewoman, allowing her to address the woman calling for her immediate action whilst sitting with his thoughts. “It’s time to let go of the past” Lauren admits, disheartened at having to talk her husband down from the moment he’d been anticipating for all too long, but aware of what needs to be agreed upon. “If Tyler or Janice were here, they’d tell you to put the gun down. They’d hate having to do it, but they’d still tell you to” Jack’s other half concludes, taking her husband’s free hand into her own and squeezing it tight. “Call Courtney and let her know as well. I’ll try to make it out there as soon as I’m done here” Charlotte remarks, already having prepared to walk out of the garage unscathed. “Jack, I’ve got somewhere else to be urgently, but I already know you’re not going to shoot me” the confident woman remarks, watching the grimace she’s reacted to with present itself upon the man’s face, “I’ll have someone else come up and work with you on what I was going to propose, but you’ve gotta make your call now.” Scowling, Jack looks the busy woman in the eyes and lets out a sigh, focusing on the touch of his wife’s warm palm pressing into his own, his mind eased from the cliff he’d prepared to leap over the edge of within her comfort. Lowering the gun, the small business’ patriarch turns the lock on the garage and kneels down, pulling the entrance open to grant the woman her exit, “go. Get out” he concludes, pointing in the direction of her awaiting convoy. With no more than a nod, Charlotte bows her head and steps off the stool, reupholstering her talkie before stepping out of the workshop, refusing to speak another word to the man she knows was lured into the decision he’d made, but had the literal chance to lower the gun for himself. | “You’re sure he was from Prince Edward Island?” Charlotte responds, shaking her head as she passes another look toward the laminated identification card within her grasp. “It’s got the same confirmation stamp we had all residents staying put get during that first year. He’s from over the bridge” Courtney doubles down, hands reaching for both sides of her waist. “So what the fuck was he doing outside the front walls?” Charlotte whispers, though the haste in her voice accidentally makes it loud enough for the nearby hospital patient to overhear. “The better question is why he and the rest were perched up in trees” Salem rebukes, stepping past the leader’s armed security detail with a limp, her calf muscle bandaged, stitched, and treated for infection all within the same day. “Well, if you’re so inclined to get in my business and we’re going to go down that route, why were you out there in the first place?” Charlotte replies, genuinely curious as to the woman’s motivations, “the kid you were with said you’d heard something in the forest, but I know he’s covering for your ass. There’s no way you heard something that far into the woods, and I know damn well you’re the kind to just wander off into nowhere looking for trouble.” “I don’t know whether to be insulted or flattered” Salem mocks, pressing her arm into the hallway’s corner so as to take the weight off her bad leg whilst a caring voice calls out from a few metres behind her. “Salem, you need to get off that leg” Emilio remarks, finally rounding the same corner that his friend had approached, having not realised his business partner and compound leader were within an arm's reach. “You obnoxious cunts never fail to amaze me. What, do you fuckers travel in packs or something!? Jesus!” Charlotte quips, rolling her eyes and spinning around as her right hand woman takes over. “Guys, I’m sorry but we really need to talk in private right now” Courtney remarks, her passive request for privacy refused and ignored by the wounded woman who limps for the intel carried within the hands of the community’s overseer. “I took a bullet to get that card for you. It was important to the other guy I shot- for whatever reason- and I think I’ve earned the right to know why” Salem explains, brushing off the hand Emilio tries to rest upon her shoulder, “and I think, since I’m pretty sure you know what I’m more than willing to do, you lack the guts to tell me otherwise to my face.” “Salem, you- as a survivor- frighten me greatly. I’ve never denied that, I never will deny that, and will always consider you to be a different breed of confusing, complicated, and badass human altogether” Charlotte replies, not shying away from offering the woman the credit she’s due, “but regardless of what you do and don’t want, there are some things that you and your friends are just not meant to learn about. It’s not even just a ‘you guys’ thing, that applies for the general public.” “Actually, I’m not sure we can keep it a secret anymore” Courtney interjects, watching her superior glance toward her with the look of confusion, “at least, I don’t think we can keep it secret from them anymore.” Covering her face with her hand, Charlotte sits with the woman’s remark in spite of not being offered a reason, trusting her close confidant enough to take her at her word. “Gamble introduced himself to Emilio last night. And before you say anything, Emilio only told me about it about two hours ago” Courtney explains, watching Charlotte’s eyes widen as they fall upon her once more, the leader’s gaze soon redirecting itself toward the man in question before her eyelids press together yet again. “He didn’t spill the beans on much, but he made it clear that something was going to happen- and you weren’t going to win” Courtney explains, pressing her teeth together and grimacing as the Nova Scotian leader turns around, slowly walking away with her head lowered. “We both know he’s aware of them and what they did in New York, but if we don’t tell them about Gamble now, he’s gonna get to them sooner or later” the bartering paramotorist declares, “we’ve gotta beat him to the punch.” “Who the fuck is Gamble and what does he have to do with the wallet I pulled off the dead guy?” Salem wonders aloud, wanting to know whatever she can in return for the wound she’d taken in Nova Scotia’s name. “He’s the guy that sent those fuckers into the woods. I don’t know what they were doing there, but they were there on his orders” Charlotte confesses, letting out a sigh as she comes to grips with what her hand has been forced into, “he’s in charge of a rebellion group out in PEI.” “There’s only one?” Salem suddenly wonders aloud, paying the compound’s leader an off-hand jab before bowing her head, humorously apologising before falling silent. “Yes, there’s only one. At least- that we know of” Charlotte replies, turning back with her arms crossed and reapproaching Courtney, allowing the truth behind what she’s now forced into to settle, “but, if I’m going to tell either of you anything more, I guess I’ll have to tell all of you.” “The others are at Alicia and Franklin’s flat. We were supposed to meet them for dinner until Salem- well, y’know” Emilio responds, watching Courtney’s head nod before falling toward the ground, “I just talked to them a few minutes ago. They’re still there.” “Then let’s not waste anymore time. I already hate this as is” Charlotte replies, beginning the retreat for the convoy that had taken her to the hospital whose halls they now occupy for the time being, “Fly-girl, governor, and pirate leg- let’s go.” Stepping through the corridors without a second thought, Charlotte leaves the trio behind to watch her depart, not one of them confident that they’re to just blindly follow her. Without much of an alternative to lean toward, Courtney leads the charge in following after her superior whilst Emilio aids Salem onward, her rifle kept in tow as they continue through the nearest set of doors, joining the leader of the community in her reluctant march toward the home of those she has little care for. == Rise ==
0 Comments
Stepping into the commons area with two cups of coffee and wrapped in a heavier winter coat than most department stores would be willing to sell, Harvey approaches a lonely cafeteria-like table near the back of the room, his right eyebrow raised. “Chilly?” he wonders aloud, extending one of the coffees to the woman heavier-dressed than he is, her mitten-covered hands coupling together to graciously accept the piping hot beverage.
“Very” Katie replies, watching her friend round the table and take a seat opposite her, a smile worn in the corner of his face. “Why don’t you look more cold? You are cold, right?” she inquires, watching the casual facade her acquaintance walks with at an almost-loss for words. “It’s chilly, but I’m not- that” Harvey retorts, pointing at the comforter-like coat draped over the small-in-comparison shoulders of his colleague, “you look like you robbed a Burlington Coat Factory.” “Because it’s cold!” Katie proclaims, popping the beverage’s lid off to revel in the warmth of lifting steam, “didn’t you say we were close to Greenland or something?” Squinting, Harvey stares off at the ceiling for a moment as he ponders a reply, eyes taking to the exposed ventilation units left uncovered by anything even as small and light as cardboard tiles. “We’re closer to southern Newfoundland, so we’d have to cross the rest of it northbound and then cross the Labrador Sea” he soon concludes, shrugging with a nod, “but yes, then we’d be in Greenland.” Shaking her head, Katie begrudgingly pulls one mitten off before taking her drink into that hand, the smallest sip taken without the slightest bit of care over the burn it gives the roof of her mouth. “All I want is to go home” Katie replies, shaking her head whilst bouncing her leg, eagerly anticipating her reunion with temperatures far warmer to the polar-like conditions she’s come into. “Unless we’re amongst the unfortunate few that have to stay here, we’ll get that wish when this place is back online” Harvey responds, crossing one leg over the other whilst resting his arms against the table’s top, “Gamble wants this place operational- not fortified. Count our lucky stars for that.” “Gamble wants a lot of things that Gamble doesn’t seem to get” Katie quips, a conclusion that her friend can’t bring himself to agree with. “He wanted nationhood and got the closest thing to it, he wants this plant online, he wanted to use the soil on that island you and your friends used to live on-” Harvey rebukes, shaking his head as his bottom lip protrudes outward, “-independence is the only thing he hasn’t gotten as far as I can see it... And even that is arguable.” Wearing a dismissive frown, Katie presses her eyelids shut and hangs her head toward the drink, letting the heat hit her face whilst the air around her remains cold. Trying to find a state of peace that can bring her comfort from the winter chill, the woman’s mind goes quiet, her thoughts dumbing into nothingness as the willingness to picture herself anywhere but within the northeastern tip of Canada fades, replaced by a dark emptiness as frosty as the wind chill outside. “Falling asleep on me?” Harvey wonders aloud, his words hitting the woman’s ears before earning a delayed shake of her head, not a verbal response to be returned to him. Nodding to himself, the man takes the silent front being put on as an excuse to sit with his own thoughts, keeping them to himself as he uses the speech-less quietude between himself and his partner to stare at the nearby window, seeing little more than the accumulation of snow that had fallen over the last three days. In the distance, metal trays make contact with an expansive wooden countertop, sliding down its length little by little and being coated in one clump of food after another. In other corners, fellow members of the independence-seeking island gather around tables talking with each other whilst others sit on their lonesome, reading a book beside the shelf they’d likely borrowed it from. “Why did it take so long to get up here?” Katie inquires, her voice bringing an end to their shared silence. “What was that?” Harvey questions back, unsure of what’s being asked as he searches for context. “The refinery. You said it mattered a great deal to Gamble and that he’s been after controlling it for a while now” the woman doubles down, shrugging her shoulders beneath the bundles she’s covered in, “why did it take him so long to get up here and start putting it back online?” His expression shifting as if he’s been provided enough clarity to answer, Harvey steps out of his seat, growing more acclimated to the frostbite-esque weather enough to pull his coat’s zipper down. “Well, for a start, it takes a while to get here. He wanted to make sure the port was clear enough to drop people off by boat instead of taking the roads deep into Quebec” Harvey begins, approaching a nearby bookshelf and retrieving the first green-coloured hardcover he lays eyes on. “After that, we needed to clear all routes from both the south and the west, to actually get to this place” he proceeds, taking a glance at the cover of “In Defence of Witches” with intrigue, “and finally, it’s always felt like he was hoping to be cut off from Nova Scotia by then. The less red tape to cut through- the better.” “It didn’t interest Nova Scotia to have another refinery consolidated within their possessions?” Katie retorts, unsure of what sense such a case makes, “that doesn’t make much sense.” “Neither does letting Gamble have it” Harvey rebukes, returning the book to the shelf before pulling free a copy of “Losing the Battle, Winning the War” with a smirk, “Nova Scotia would’ve known what Gamble’s play was the second they started hearing about activity in Newfoundland.” “And he thinks they won’t hear about it now?” the cold woman replies, watching her friend’s shoulders shrug as he returns the book to its assortment of friends. “I’m sure he knows they’ll get word of this eventually” Harvey assures, finally pulling free a soft-cover copy of “Till We Become Monsters” and nodding, “what his play is here- I have no idea. I’m not sure what he knows or what he doesn’t. I- just like you- am here because I was told to be here.” Reclaiming his seat opposite the bundled-up survivor, Harvey places his book onto the table’s surface and retakes his beverage, lifting it to his lips before beginning to read the first page. “That’s it? You’re not even gonna try to convince me that you love it out here?” Katie wonders, finding it odd that the man wouldn’t amusingly try to convince her of a blatant lie. “It may be cold on the island, but it’s at least tolerable” Harvey responds, shaking his head as he briefly glances toward the girl’s direction, “the weather up here is more akin to a bad joke gone even worse than planned.” “And yet you’re here. You’re dressed in the same kind of stuff you’d wear going out on the island, and you’re reading a book in some glorified cafeteria” Katie remarks, watching the man with a squint in her eye as a fellow resident walks by with a steaming tray of mashed potatoes and string beans. “I’m a man. In case you’re too young to remember chivalry, it’s us that are expected to give up our jackets when it’s cold outside” Harvey replies, looking back down to his novel’s opening line, “why do you think Ms. Wilcox invented the car heater?” “Ms Who?” Katie replies, watching the man take a brief sabbatical from answering her questions in order to lift his hot drink for a sip. “Margaret Wilcox- she invented the heating system in cars?” Harvey responds, an eyebrow raised in the direction of the lady opposite him. “Why would you expect me to know that?” the woman questions, peering past the pile of warmth she’s the centrepiece of. “Well, I’d always just assumed you were all about ‘girl power’ and such before the old world got turned upside down” Harvey replies, flipping back to his read’s table of contents for a brief second, “you can’t really champion women honestly without knowing what they’ve accomplished, now can you?” “If anything, I’m more concerned with how you knew who invented the vehicular heating system than anything women have done” Katie answers honestly, watching her friend chuckle with amusement. “We all had our own lives in the old world, Katie. Does that surprise you?” Harvey retorts, shaking his head as he closes the book’s cover, his index finger placed on the page he’d attempted to begin reading, “I liked to learn before I spent a few good months slaughtering those undead freaks.” “What did you do?” Katie wonders aloud, brushing off the man’s following comment before watching his silent glance fall upon her, again looking for further context, “what was your job before everything happened?” “I was a lawyer” the man quickly replies, gently pulling his book closer to the drink he reaches for another sip of, “why does that matter?” “It doesn’t” Katie replies with equal haste, smelling the scent of gravy that wafts off the tray another survivor passes her with, “it’s just nice to know what people used to be.” Dismissive of the claim, Harvey juts his chin to the side and reopens his book, eyes taking to the opening page whilst his colleague stares at him, not having anything on her mind so much as she is just preferring to keep her gaze upon her welcomed company, beginning to warm in the face of the great northern chill. = Rise is created by Zachary Serra, all rights to the series belong to Zachary Serra and the entity of Pacer1 from the start of Season 3 onwards = “Come on in” Emilio chirps, stepping aside with the door to his friend’s apartment open, watching Clint and Nessie drag a heavy ice chest into the kitchen. “Jesus, guys! When you said you were bringing over crab legs, I thought you meant a bag of them!” Alicia declares, climbing out of her seat near the back of the living room whilst her husband steps out of a nearby bedroom, their child’s diaper and clothes changed. “Oh relax, this isn’t all for you” the siblings reply, lowering the massive container onto the ground just before the open fridge, one bag after another taken off the mountain of ice within and placed into the largest shelf. “This was probably our best catch all year” Clint remarks, taking one bag from his sister after another and loading it into the apartment’s cooling unit, “the entire goddamn boat was listing nearly forty-five degrees with how heavy the damn net was.” Letting the flat’s tenants step past him whilst shielding his bottled water from any accidental bumping, Emilio stands near the corner of the room watching one claw-wrapped creature after another be stuffed into the cold box at the back of the room. “How many credits do these things sell for?” he wonders aloud, watching the religious fisherman continue claiming one future-dinner after another from his sister before finding room within the chilled compartments. “Around one hundred to one hundred and fifty, I guess?” Clint replies, stuffing hundreds of credits-worth of crab into the apartment’s rather compact refrigerator. “I guess we’re lucky you like us so much, huh?” Franklin jokes, earning a side-eye from his wife, who’s resigned herself to accepting the future feast being unloaded into their cooler. “You sure are, haha!” Nessie replies, continuing to hand her brother one restrained crab after another whilst knelt beside their ice-filled chest. “Are you sure you’re alright with just giving us all of this for free?” Franklin soon wonders aloud, partially feeling guilty for accepting a gift as lofty and expensive as the ones being stuffed into his fridge. “Dude, I’m pretty sure we caught a few hundred thousand credits-worth of these things in one trip” Clint responds, assuring the man he’s to have no guilt over the luxury he’s been appreciatively afforded, “this is just a drop in the bucket- and we’re more than happy to leave it for you.” Left with little other choice, Franklin continues to hold his infant son whilst the siblings direct the conversation elsewhere. “Speaking of credits- you have enough of the bartering life yet, Emilio?” Clint inquires, flashing the man a smirk before stuffing the final crab into the nearest chilled drawer. “Not in the slightest” the man replies, shrugging his shoulders as he prepares to sip from his plastic bottle, “Courtney and I have a run across the bridge in an hour or so.” “Out on P.E.I?” Alicia questions back, looking at the man from over her shoulder just as her husband does. “Yep. I’m not sure what Courtney’s got us slated to pick up, but whatever it is will be worth the sixty-four packages of double-A batteries we’re exchanging for it” Emilio replies, nodding as his claim catches the ear of the woman across the room from him. “Don’t get me wrong, I understand the scepticism toward the banks, but I don’t understand why so many people choose bartering over the credit system” Nessie responds, the uncertainty visible in her face. “Because the bank can fail, the compound can fail, the credits can go down in value- so on and so forth” Emilio replies, swallowing his water before continuing, “people want to fuck, drink, smoke, and get high. Drugs, cigs, liquor, and condoms will never not be valuable.” “I can’t say I disagree” Clint responds, locking the cooler’s lid shut to keep the ice within from melting any quicker than it’s already prepared to, “but then again, our boat makes it impossible for bartering to be more valuable to us than the credits.” “No one size fits all- to each their own” Emilio replies, lifting his water bottle into the air whilst Clint accepts a glass bottle from Alicia, saluting his friend from across the room all the same before popping the cap off and taking a swig. With night now having fallen and the journey across the Confederation Bridge completed, Emilio joins his business partner in retrieving a set of briefcases from the trunk of their shared sedan. “I’m just saying this is an odd place to meet for a trade” he remarks, defending his position whilst slamming the vehicle’s trunk shut, “if you’re trading for a boat, it makes sense to meet at a pier. Trading a car? A parking lot makes sense. But trading for a trailer? Why meet in an old warehouse?” “How am I supposed to know why our partners choose the locations they choose?” Courtney retorts, unsure over why the question asked is being directed toward her. “Sure, that would make sense if not for that small oversight of these aren’t our partners” Emilio responds, calmly offering the woman a hint of sarcasm amusing enough to bring about a chuckle, “we don’t know them from any random schmuck on the side of the street.” “We know the people that know them” Courtney replies, taking the lead of the pair whilst her colleague carries the pair of leather-bound briefcases in tow. “One way or another, we don’t really need to care about where we’re meeting them as long as they have what we want” she continues, stepping through the decrepit building’s entrance with her acquaintance closely behind, “we need more storage space and we need better transportation for the big shit. This trailer will help immensely.” “Of course it will. I can understand that as much as I’d hope you’d be able to understand my scepticism” Emilio rebukes, stepping through the entrance just after the woman, not breaking a sweat over the heavy cases he carries at each side. “I understand, but I’m not going to be moved by it” Courtney jokes, a look over her shoulder paid to the man in her shadow, “when you barter as frequently as we do- and with as high-value things as we do- you’re bound to have quite a rolodex.” “Let me guess- this is just adding a new business card to it?” Emilio interjects, already able to pick out where the woman that stops ahead of him is preparing to go with her end of the discourse. “Exactly” Courtney replies with a smile, turning back to look at the man before carrying on with her journey further into the rundown building’s interior, preparing for the individuals they’re bound to meet within minutes. Extending her arm, Courtney pushes the heavy entrance open and stops in the doorway, eyes widened at the sight of a large group of people gathered within. Surprised for a moment, the woman pauses in the entrance before stepping further inside, a cautious yet guard-lowered Emilio following her lead. “Well we weren’t expecting you for another half hour or so” she mutters aloud, a slight squint in her eye as her colleague follows closely behind, “and we didn’t expect so many of you either.” “Yeah, we left the trailer in the lot a few streets over” an older man replies, his hair still holding a faded brown colour to it, though his face wears the wrinkles of a man in her early-fifties at best. “The streets down below are a little too crowded to leave such a big hunk of junk just laying around” he continues, stepping away from a small gaggle of his peers to approach the woman, a set of keys carried in his hand, “besides, the only decent place for us to park was that parking garage.” “We’re not too familiar with this place, but it was the easiest spot to exchange the trailer” a second man replies, the youth in his eyes making it clear that he’s at least a decade younger than the first man. “Y’all have got the batteries, right?” the first man inquires, watching Emilio step forward and place each briefcase on the ground, one by each side as he picks himself up. “And all sixty four are there, right?” the younger man inquires, watching the nod Emilio gives him reply with the answer the woman voices aloud. “All seven hundred and sixty eight, yeah” Courtney replies, watching the nod on the first man respond to her as he lowers himself to the ground, reaching for the handles on each case. “Uh-uh-uh. Not so fast” Emilio interrupts, stepping out in front of the cases with his hand outward, gently pressing into the older man’s chest and preventing him from getting any lower. “You’ve got the man power to keep us to our deal, so we want a little bit of security first” he remarks, not allowing even the faintest contact of either man’s hands with the property they’ve yet to exchange, “give us the keys and we’ll leave you with the cases.” “I just wanted to take a look inside. Y’know, make sure it’s all there?” the first man responds, watching Emilio’s foot gently swing forward before swiping in the opposite direction, his heel kicking the case with a loud thud. As if containing more weight than a rack of dumbbells, the briefcase barely reacts at first before slowly falling backward, landing onto the dirt-covered cement ground with a loud impact. “We were recommended to you by the same people that recommended you to us” Emilio replies, not allowing the man the peak inside he was hoping for, “we’re good for our word.” Though she’d entered the building with high hopes and the dismissive optimism of a seasoned negotiator, Courtney’s suspicions begin to outweigh her open-mindedness, making room for the same scepticism she’d made an attempt at speaking out of her colleague’s system. “Easy partner, I don’t see why we have to be so hostile here” the first man replies, lifting both hands up in a show of surrender before slowly offering one toward the man across from him, “I’m David.” Taking a look down at the man’s hand, Emilio takes the hand hanging by his right side and gently presses the man’s hand into a fist, casually guiding it back to his person. “I’m Emilio. And just like my partner Courtney, we were told there’d be two of you” he responds, not offering the man any niceties, but making certain to pay him the respect of remaining civil. “We’re the only two negotiating here” the second man replies, a little less pleasant to interact with than his older contemporary, though still following the decent and courteous example presented to him. “I see five gentlemen standing behind you, and-” Emilio begins to respond, peering over his shoulder just as Courtney does at the sound of the entrance they’d stepped through being shut by an eighth man they’d yet to notice. “-and a sixth standing behind us” he corrects himself, turning back to look David in the eyes, a gentle shake of his head, “you’ve clearly got someone watching all the exits. So, hand me the keys, and I’ll stand right here whilst you inspect your batteries.” Though David still wears a grin, it’s significantly lowered from where it had been upon the gracious front he’d attempted to erect. Growing more anxious by each passing second, Courtney slowly reaches her left hand behind her back, trying to keep from making any sudden moves in front of the people that now present her with an ominous display. Though he’s caught onto the malicious intentions their bartering partners appear to present, Emilio refuses to show an ounce of relent. With his head hung, David extends his hand toward his younger acquaintance, preventing him from stepping forward any further than he already has. “EJ- don’t” the man warns, the sudden step forward prompting Courtney’s ever-sneaking hand to move the rest of the way toward her concealed weapon. “Don’t think about it, girl” the man responsible for closing their entrance warns, pulling his own weapon from the waistband of his pants and holding the barrel of it toward the woman. “Hold your fire, big guy” David exclaims, his hand held outward toward the man behind the pair he’s meant to barter with, watching Courtney turn around to face the man with a gun drawn at her, yet to release her own firearm from the hem of her pants. “Everyone should be holding their fire right now” Emilio rebukes, not an ounce of concern held within the vibrato of his voice, his expression unchanged as it lingers on the man across from him. What you should do is try not to make an enemy out of- perhaps- the most trusted barterers on the market” Emilio warns, looking David in the eye and refusing to break the visual contact, “screw us out of that trailer and this will be the last good-faith negotiation you ever take part in, if you can even call it that at this point.” “Emilio, settle down” Courtney remarks, trying to ease the man from the position of power he doesn’t have, and yet still attempts to utilise. “It’s fine, Courtney. As a matter of fact, I think David and I can handle this mano-a-mano” Emilio replies, looking to the same side that the man across from him does, finding a surprised and vehemently-refusing woman looking back at him. “No-the-fuck the two of you don’t” Courtney retorts, her hand still holding the grip of her pistol within her clenched palm, a passing glance taken at the men she’s supposedly meant to trust with business from here on out before looking at the man with the weapon held at her. “The last thing I need is for someone to get hurt here. I’m unarmed, and I’ve got no one other than Courtney in my corner here” Emilio replies, trying to make yet another negotiation with his adversary. “This negotiation isn’t settled yet. As far as I’m concerned, it’d be better if the bunch of you allowed this woman to leave unharmed so we can finish up in here” Emilio continues, looking David in the eyes as his acquaintance stares at him with an open mouth. Left in disbelief at the man’s attempt at persuading the men to grant her permission to depart, Courtney fails to come up with words of refusal she wishes to speak, the silence left in her pauses allowing their untrustworthy foes to think. Passing a glance to the younger man behind himself, David eyes the other unnamed men standing behind him before puckering his lips, pleased with the defence they’ve erected in the event this offer doesn’t turn out as advertised. “Big guy, let the lady leave” he concludes, the response only widening the look of shock that spreads across Courtney’s face. “I’ve got this covered from here, Court’” Emilio immediately reassures, looking to his side to find the woman’s face, “I promise.” Unable to express the conflicted feeling suppressed within her, Courtney continues to stare at the man before briefly looking back at the guard holding his weapon on her as he steps aside, eyes soon taking back to the man she struggles to justify leaving behind. “Seriously... Go” Emilio reiterates, watching the woman gingerly step forward to accept the offer, begrudgingly moving onward to the safety she knows her partner has yet to be guaranteed, “if this gets ugly, you’re better off out there than you are in here.” “How heroic” EJ quips from afar, earning a passing glare from the man he and his group have ambushed with the allure of what they seemingly refuse to offer up. Without much to argue against the proposition, Courtney disheartedly ventures back the way she came, stepping through the door that soon closes on her way out, leaving her friend behind to deal with the situation she’d mistakenly led him into. “I’m gonna take it this isn’t your first rodeo with a threat?” David remarks, an eyebrow raised as he stares at the man whose face contorts into a betrayed, yet confident visage. “Oh, this isn’t my first rodeo-” Emilio replies, unswayed by the closing in of the man’s group, watching them surround him slowly without offering the slightest glimpse of fear, “-but you’re not a threat.” | “The quality is fantastic” a man remarks, holding a set of chainmail pants in front of himself as he stands before an open garage door, the view afforded allows a passing glance at one of Nova Scotia’s many open fields. “That’s because it’s made by hand” Jack replies, wiping his hands off on a rag that he tosses over his shoulder, stepping away from the side of his wife as she counts the paper credits exchanged to her, “well, that and we actually like making this stuff.” “How did you learn to do it?” the pleased patron replies, laying the carefully-crafted chainmail piece with an assortment of others he’d purchased all the same, “I thought this was one of those things that people forgot how to do when the mediaeval times were over?” “It’s not that difficult to take tiny steel rings and fit them into each other, y’know” Lauren retorts from behind the desk she counts the paper credits at, “if anything, it’s getting the steel rings that are challenging.” “I’d imagine so. I’d imagine whatever steel we have would be put into swords and shields and stuff like that” the customer replies, shaking his head before placing his hands upon his hips. “There’s still enough of this stuff for us to keep making this gear, but it gets harder to find as time moves on” Jack retorts honestly, “the price is just gonna continue to go up the harder this stuff is to find. Couple that together with the fact that it’s just us here and, well, it's pretty time consuming.” “The five hundred thousand credit price for a full suit makes a lot more sense then” the man replies, lifting his eyebrows as his eyes take to the open plains just a hop, skip, and jump from the makeshift factory. “Indeed. Luckily, Nova Scotia’s not real-keen on having the biggest and baddest in military-grade bullshit, so we don’t have an entire army to suit” Jack replies, crossing his arms as he joins alongside his satisfied patron, “we’re very happy with our little setup as is.” “I’d imagine” the man replies, listening to his business partner’s wife step out of the seat she’d counted the credits from, a box and a set of plastic bags soon taken into her possession. “Alright, Mr. Ethan. All the credits are there and your suit is complete” Lauren remarks, taking each piece of the chainmail set into her hands and carefully slipping them into individual bags, “thank you for your business.” “Hey, if anyone should be thanking anyone, I should be thanking you” Ethan responds, shaking his head with gratitude as he takes a second bag from the pile the woman had brought over, carefully helping her slip chainmail pieces into individual packaging. “I’ve had a few close calls out there. It may not be bulletproof, but with how sparse those things are becoming- it doesn’t need to be” he continues, sealing his bag shut before moving onto the next one, “you’re helping keep me safe.” “That’s the business we’re in” Jack replies, taking the final chainmail piece into his possession before delicately laying it in another bag, laying it atop the pile of others that reside within the cardboard box their customer is prepared to leave with. Passing a few smiles and nods to each other, the trio prepare to end their exchange with Ethan’s departure, his feet carrying him to the cusp of the garage’s exit before stopping suddenly, a thought coming over his mind that draws him backward. “You would be happy with more, right?” Ethan suddenly inquires, watching the couple’s heads pull away from each other to tend toward his remark, though they’re unable to fully understand what’s being asked of them. “I’m sorry?” Lauren inquires, looking for context their pleased and supportive patron is happy to provide. “This setup is nice and cosy. You’ve got a lot going for you here, and making half a million credits making one piece every, what- Two or three months? That’s great” Ethan explains, crediting the couple with their work whilst providing them the potential fruits of more, “but you’d be happy to do more than that, right? I mean, you’d need a bigger place than this and a bigger workforce, but- you’d be happy to do more, right?” Their eyes inevitably redirecting themselves toward each other, the married couple making a suitable living from the comfort of their home’s storage unit silently stare at each other as if the idea had never been floated between them before. “With a bigger place and actual employee’s- yeah. We’d be open to making more” Lauren replies, taking charge of offering a response before her husband tags along with it, “why do you ask?” Jack inquires. “Oh, no reason. I mean, you guys were suggested to me through a friend. I can imagine I’m not the only one that works outside the compound. Maybe I’m one of the few that actually know about you guys?” Ethan confesses, a shrug in his shoulder accompanying his words, “I’m sure they’d be real interested in the stuff you make here if they did.” “Well as long as they can pony up the credits, we’ll make these pieces for anyone willing to have enough patience” Lauren quickly responds, sensing something deeper than just an empty inquiry just as her husband does. “Our armour isn’t low quality. Doing this shit right takes time, so as long as they’re willing to wait for it to be done right-” Jack adds on, pausing to look at his wife for a moment before setting his eyes upon the customer once more, “-we’re open for business.” Nodding to himself, Ethan smiles to the small business owners and follows through with his departure, carrying his boxed-up suit of armour to the same truck he soon hops behind the wheel of. As nightfall comes over Nova Scotia, the man’s truck ends up finding itself parked in the front lot of the converted city hall his highest-ranking superiors reside within. With a box under his right arm, Ethan rolls through the echo-heavy halls of the once-museum and ventures past one security guard after another, slowly making his way higher upon the chain of command before finding himself outside the office of the leader herself. “Mrs. Walters will see you now” the woman seated behind the nearby desk proclaims, holding the base of her palm to the receiver of the phone she holds, granting the suit-bearing man permission to step forward. “I’ve heard that you have something for-” Charlotte begins to remark, coupling her hands together atop her desk before finding herself cut off by the box being dropped before her, interrupting the woman’s remarks before she even has the opportunity to finish, “-me.” “I’m Ethan Parker. I work with Courtney” the man remarks, greeting the leader of society’s last pillar as she removes the cheaters from over her eyes. “Yeah, I know who you are” Charlotte replies, nodding her head with the least-enthused expression on her face, “do you honestly think I wouldn’t know who’s in the inner circle of my right-hand woman?” “Yes” Ethan replies with both conviction and speed, not wasting a moment in opening the once-taped flaps of the cardboard box he’s let fall before the woman’s eyes. “If this is a bomb, can I at least pour myself a drink before you set it off?” Charlotte half-heartedly remarks, her right eyebrow raised as she tries to poke fun at the interaction, “if I’m going to die, I’d prefer not to do it while sober.” “It’s even better than a bomb” Ethan replies, opening the flimsy container before tilting its contents out, letting the bagged pieces fall upon the woman’s unmoved coupled hands. Confused, the woman lifts the first item, a plastic-wrapped chainmail chestplate, before her eyes and squints, unsure of what she’s supposed to be looking at. “Is this some post-apocalyptic fashion style?” Charlotte wonders aloud, settling for making a joke once realising she has not the first clue of what she’s looking at. “No, but I wouldn’t blame you for thinking it was something tacky from one of those old department stores” Ethan responds, matching his superior’s humour with his own. “Ethan, everything at those old department stores were tacky” Charlotte replies, gently letting the packaged goods she stares at fall back to the desk they were emptied upon, “that still doesn’t answer what this is.” “It’s a set of chainmail armour I just paid half a million credits for” Ethan replies, immediately watching the woman seated behind her desk look up with raised eyebrows. “Chainmail?” Charlotte responds, watching her answer emanate within the grin and nod of the man she asks the question to, “as in the chainmail armour those knights used to use in the olden days?” Again nodding, Ethan is left to watch the woman quickly inspect the rest of the pieces in his set before her back presses into the office chair she occupies. Coupling her hands together- this time on top of the bagged pieces of armour- Charlotte looks up at the man with equal intrigue as equal loss. “Why are you showing me this?” the Nova Scotian leader inquires, puzzled by the presentation and uncertain over what she’s meant to take from it. “Because most of the people in Courtney’s inner circle know about the tensions between you and Gamble. We know the hope is to avoid a war, but hope isn’t something we can just blindly count on” Ethan explains, the deepening squint in the leader’s eyes further presenting her intrigue, “so, in the event things fall through, we have this.” Extending his open hands toward the packaged pieces of armour laid at his superior’s behest, Ethan proposes his solution to the concept of conflict. “Not only is this thing going to protect your army from the undead, but it’ll stop knives, daggers, and swords the guys across the bridge will have to use when they run out of ammo” he continues, trying to strengthen a case he believes is nearly-impenetrable. “Assuming they’ll run low on ammo is as optimistic as hoping that we won’t” Charlotte replies, sitting back in her seat before reclaiming the wrapped chainmail chestplate as she leans to one side. “Even in the event of war, the other colonies can only do so much. Gamble doesn’t just have ammo reserves upon ammo reserves, but he has our ships and heavy artillery” she proceeds, tossing the armour back to her desk once more, “this is just an obstacle to them.” “Just tell me you’ll look into it” Ethan replies, watching the woman’s eyes look up at him as he pleads his case, “it’s better to be safe than it is to be sorry. In the event they do happen to run low on whatever it is they’ve got stocked up, you’ll be glad you had this.” Looking up at the man, Charlotte stares at the face of her subordinate-by-connection before letting out a sigh, sinking further into her seat before coupling her hands in her lap, “who made it?” “This couple out in Scoudouc” Ethan responds, watching the woman’s distant eyes squint at the name of the town, “Jack and Lauren O’Rourke.” in an instant, the nearly pressed-together eyelids of the compound’s leader shoot open, parting at once before rolling toward the distant corner of her office, accompanying a laugh she can’t help but let free from within her core. “Oh THAT’S FUCKING GOLD!” Charlotte exclaims, pushing herself into the comfort of her seat before firing out of it with equal annoyance as awe. “Of course it’s Jack and Lauren- of course it is” she mutters aloud, lowering her shaking head as her hands find her hips, “just take your armour and leave so I can get ready to go pay those fuckers a visit.” “Don’t you need me to give you their address?” Ethan inquires, unsure of the reason behind the wide-eyed stare she responds to him with. “I know where to find them” Charlotte retorts, turning her face back toward the window near the far end of her room with an amused grin she can’t bring herself to conceal. | “I am trying to keep things from getting ugly, you know?” David remarks, bringing into question his adversary’s prior remark, “the big guy behind you only drew his gun ‘cause your girl did. The rest of us have a piece on us, we’re just choosing not to use it.” “And I’m choosing to give you a chance not to make the biggest mistake of your life” Emilio retorts, continuing to speak as if he were in any position of authority in this conversation. “As long as we’re remaining civil, I’ll play along with this dance you seem to wanna take part in” David responds, waving his hand in a circle as if to offer the floor for the man across from him to go on, “enlighten me to what I’m not seeing. Because, from my perspective, there’s nothing off about you.” “Meaning?” Emilio replies, laying the groundwork for the man to provide context. “Meaning anything! You don’t strike me as a killer. I’ve never met you before in my life, but I’ll give you this- you’ve got a rock-solid poker face” David replies, shrugging his shoulders as his hands dig into his pockets, sitting there with little reason to believe they’d be better off out of them, “but that’s what I mean. There’s nothing special about you that makes this seem like a mistake on my part.” “Of course there’s not- it’s her that’s special” Emilio replies, pulling his head back as if the man he’s speaking to is of a lower level than him intellectually, “why do you think I wanted her out of the room?” “And who is she supposed to be?” EJ retorts, waving his hand toward the direction of the recently-departed survivor their trading partner speaks so highly of. “She’s Charlotte’s right hand” Emilio replies both quickly and honestly, watching the eyes of both men standing in front of him squint with his words, “Courtney Golden. She’s the chick you always see flying through the sky when the clouds aren’t out. And if anything happens to me here, word of that will go all the way to the top.” “You’re lying” David responds, letting out a chuckle before feeling the weight of a hand crash against the side of his face. “Did that slap feel like it was delivered by the hand of a man who isn’t completely untouchable?” Emilio hastily wonders aloud, letting his bright-red palm lower back to his side as the men that surround him prepare to ready their weapons, though they struggle to justify doing so without the word of their apparent leader. “Face it, I know who I’ve got in my corner. And I know that if any of you cocksuckers chose to unload a bullet into me, you’ll be the most wanted group of fugitives in a very, very difficult world to hide in” Emilio proceeds, taking one step closer to the man whose face he’d just struck with incredible might, “so what I would do- if I were you- is hand me the keys to my trailer, take these briefcases with you while I’m still allowing you to, and fuck off.” Holding the side of his face whilst fuming, David lets his eyes steady upon those of the confident man across from him, unsure of how to react to what’s been said. Watched on by EJ, the man takes a passing look at those that surround his bartering colleague as he tries to gather his bearings, called into making a decision in that moment. “How the hell did you manage that?” Courtney inquires, climbing into the front seat of the trailer she’s been handed the keys to, speaking to the partner that stands back upon solid ground. “I know I say it a lot, but I used to be a politician. Bartering for things and using my power- whether I had it or not- to get what I want was the name of the game” Emilio responds, tucking a hand into his pocket whilst the other hangs by his side, “I was very good at it.” “I can see that” Courtney replies, patting the driver’s side door to the big rig she prepares to take the controlling seat of, a nod passed to the man standing at the base of it, “well done, partner.” Tipping his non-existent cap, Emilio flashes the woman a smile and turns his back to her, his hand lifting up to wave at her, “drive safely, Madam Flight” he retorts, spinning the keys to the car they’d arrived in on his non-dominant hand. Driving further into Prince Edward Island, Courtney’s big rig travels in the opposite direction as the way in which her acquaintance walks, his smile stretching from one ear to the other, though both catch the voice that calls out for him. “Emilio Vasquez?” a masculine voice calls out, prompting the man’s smile to begin lowering and alert to begin raising. “Who’s asking?” the key-holding man simply intending to return home and prepare himself for bed replies, genuinely unsure of who stands beside his vehicle awaiting his presence. “Oh, forgive me. Sometimes the days are so long that I forget to react to people with manners” the well-dressed stranger replies, his ironed suit and straightened tie shielded from a brief gust of wind by the equally-evened suit jacket flaps, “my name is Andrew- Andrew Gamble.” His guard lifted, Emilio watches the man extended an offered handshake without providing an equal retort, his eyes simply staring at the open-fingered palm awaiting the warmth of his own. “Forgive me, but I just dealt with some people that have left me a little sceptical of friendly fronts” the unsure civilian remarks, watching the man return his hand to his side. “Of course. I understand” Gamble remarks, waiting for the curious man to address his presence as he knows he’s intrigued to do so. “Is there something I can help you with?” Emilio inquires, not needing an invitation in order to question the motivations of who stands before him, “I don’t carry credits on me. So, even though you don’t look like you’re homeless, I can’t help you out if you’re looking for a meal.” “I’m not looking for a handout, Mr. Vasquez. In any matter, I’m not even looking for your help” Gamble proceeds, his stable body standing in front of the once-gubernatorial candidate with unwavering confidence taking the form of a questionable mystique. “I am- however- offering you the opportunity to greatly consider who you’re in bed with” the island’s silent overseer remarks, concealing his identity whilst providing the subject standing within his presence with a thought to chew on. “You may not know who I am, but I know- quite well- who you are” the man continues, his steady voice retaining its calm portrayal and poised cadence, “I know all there is to know about you. Just like I know all there is to know about Alicia, Franklin, Jack, Lauren, and all the rest.” Pressing his eyelids closer together, Emilio inspects the posture of the man presenting himself as some omnipotent guardian, aware that something more than just an uncomfortable demeanour is around the corner. “I also know about those that aren’t here. I know about Janice and Meghan, Troy and Cameron, the Callis family-” Gamble carries on, his eyelids narrowing in the least-noticeable manner that- against all odds- Emilio picks up on, “-Katie as well.” His head pulling up and chin lowering, the man beginning to feel as if he’d been backed into a corner watches the figure of near-equal height yet increasingly-imposing stature step closer. “Mr. Vasquez, I know a lot about you and your inner circle. I know what the lot of you are capable of, and I know what the lot of you are worth” Gamble proceeds, the distance between himself and the man he stands within the line of sight to rendered little more than a few centimetres, “and because of that, I know what kind of people it’d be within your best interest to join alongside, and those people are not in Nova Scotia.” “And you’re supposed to know that because? Because of what? You mention a few people from my past and present and- what? You expect that to rattle me?” Emilio replies, finally meeting the domineering presentation of the island’s quiet keeper with overdue scepticism. “My intentions here are not to rattle you. I have no interest in implying you should keep your eyes open” Gamble responds, making his business clear, “I just want you to be on the right side of history when the chips are down.” “I’m not interested in picking sides. If you know so much about my past, you know I’ve already lost enough people to be done with the bloodshed” Emilio replies, his chin lifting and eyes meeting a level slightly higher than those of the man opposite him. “I know that, but unfortunately, that is what this is all going to come to within due time” Gamble replies, speaking ill of the high hopes his company retains, “the day may come where you no longer must fight, but it is not here yet.” “Are you trying to imply that you’re going to wage war with Nova Scotia?” Emilio inquires, a half-smirk worn in the corner of his mouth very briefly, soon falling away with the reply he receives. “Yes, indeed I do” Gamble answers, the tone of his voice not once missing a beat, “and when that day comes, Nova Scotia will burn. I come to you with this information because I want the people that burned it the first time there when it goes up for a second time.” “And why do all of that? Why destroy the last thing the old world still has to offer?” Emilio wonders aloud, not seeing the point in the devastation spoken so highly of. With a straight face, Gamble looks at his adversary and begins to smile, the teeth beginning to emerge from behind his lips. “Power” he answers in a whisper-like voice, one that prompts Emilio to lean his head, trying to take the man standing before him seriously, “power that I will not be the sole beneficiary of.” Clicking his tongue as his mouth opens, Emilio presses his bottom lip between his teeth and nods to himself, looking off to the side before stepping away in favour of the driver’s seat. Without offering an answer, the man closest to Charlotte’s right-hand woman steps behind the wheel and turns the keys in the ignition, starting the engine of the vehicle whose door he closes behind himself. Silent, Gamble licks the inside of his bottom lip and steps up to the vehicle’s door, looking at Emilio through the window without a word to offer, receiving the same response from the driver. Without a second glance, the man behind the wheel presses his foot to the gas and drives off, leaving behind the man speaking with equal vagueness and certainty. Left behind as dirt is kicked up from the asphalt, Gamble watches the car speed off into the Prince Edward Island night whilst remaining with the same posture he’d held throughout the conversation’s duration. Lifting his chin, the man adjusts his tie as the brake lights of Emilio’s car disappear in the distance, joining him in turning the first corner that leads back home. With the slightest smirk, the island’s underground revolutionary walks off- his business taken care of. == Rise == \ Seven Months Later - 25th February 2023 /
Lifting a large, white bucket off the ground and setting it atop a metal table, a tall man, dressed in a brown coat and a tuque, rests one arm against the top of the container’s lid and seals it shut, the contents within protected from the environment he’s prepared to tread. Through snow-covered sidewalks, the man carries the weighted object- its height half the size of a drum barrel- over his shoulder with one hand whilst his other arm swings at his side. Hearing the squeal of tires as they approach intersections, the large man turns corners and crosses slosh-coated pedestrian walkways to cross roads as he nears a set of apartments close to the coast. His destination arrived at, the figure- well dressed for the winter conditions he’s navigated through to start his morning- ascends the stairs to the level his apartment resides at, the comfort and warmth of a home within the centre of a healing apocalypse ready to welcome him into an embrace. “Shh” Alicia whispers, bouncing her infant child gently as its crying begins to cease, hearing the hefty footsteps of her partner take toward their shared kitchen. “I’ve got washed vegetables, powdered milk, and three whole cantaloupes” Franklin remarks, hoisting the container onto the granite countertop as quietly as he can manage, “I’ll head to the mart a few blocks off later on and pick up some diapers and wipes.” “Oh, no hun- I’ll do it when I get out of work” Alicia retorts, lulling their child back to sleep as her husband gently rips the bucket’s lid off, “you’ve been up for the last day and a half, go get some sleep.” Shaking his head, Franklin refuses the woman’s offer, taking a pair of melons from the doldrum and carrying them to their fridge. “We’ve both spent more time awake out on the road, I’ll be fine” he replies, setting the groceries wherever there’s a place for them. “I’m having Salem come over in an hour or so. I want you to get some sleep before your shift tonight” Alicia rebukes, the bounce in her arms turning to a gentle sway as her focus turns to keeping the baby asleep. “I barely get enough time with the kid as is, sweetie. I don’t want to waste that time sleeping away the day” Franklin replies, stuffing a group of carrots into one of the side shelves along the fridge’s door, “I’ll be fine tonight. Then I’ll have the next two days off.” “Just go to sleep for an hour or two” Alicia responds, trying to reason with the man whilst making her best effort at talking him out of pushing past his limits, “you’ve already done so much as is, at least let me try to make your life a little easier.” With a chuckle, the tower of a gentleman finishes putting away the final few sticks of celery before quietly shutting the machine’s door, swiping the tuque off his head before approaching the woman with a smile. “It’s our baby. I have as much of a responsibility to him as you do” Franklin whispers, leaning in to press his lips upon his wife’s own, their hushed display of love preceding the turn of his eyes toward their offspring. “Hey, Buddy” he whispers, squatting down to let his arms become level with that of his wife’s, slowly letting her pass the child off to him, the sleeves of his black sweater already rolled up to free the child’s small amount of visible skin to make contact with his own. “Have you got him?” Alicia inquires, pulling her arms away with subtlety to relieve herself of the child, letting his father take over as she prepares to ready herself for her own approaching shift. “Yeah, I’ve got him” Franklin responds, standing back upright as the woman lets a quiet sigh of relief leave her lungs, hand running over her forehead as her body eases, having spent every moment since their kid’s awakening without a moment to sit down and think. “How’s it going up there in baby world, Bud?” Franklin inquires, staring at the child’s putty-like skull as his wife chuckles with a breathy laugh, her eyes closed as she tries to release the stress her body had taken on. “Are we calling him Buddy or Bud?” Alicia quietly asks aloud, finally opening her eyes as she wipes the sweat from her palm against her baggy sweatpants. “I’ve been going with both since he was born, and I honestly doubt that’s going to change until he’s old enough to tie his shoes” Franklin jokes, his supporting arms held still as his wife leans against the counter. “I’m just glad we settled on one before he actually got here” the man doubles down, a smile carried on his face as he looks into the infant’s closed eyes, “and thankfully, we gave this precious little lump of human an age that’ll actually age well.” “I don’t think we’d have earned the kid unless we had” Alicia quips back, joining her husband in a silent chuckle of amusement before their humour settles aside, the quietude of a late-winter day bringing a subtle peace over their apartment, a cosy stuffiness lingering in the air. With a smile on her face and the palms of her hands pressing into the edge of her counter, the mother watches those she loves most in the kitchen’s centre, a mental snapshot taken of a moment worth capturing. For a few seconds, the warmth radiating off the nearby heater brings a comfort over the winter chill that sneaks through the cracks in their windows, allowing the couple to enjoy the company of each other and take pleasure in the sight of their child. Watched on by the mother, Franklin gently presses his back into the refrigerator, letting it support him as he cradles the infant, as silent as the woman a few paces off to his side is as he takes the time Nova Scotia affords him in a crazy world. “And to think that four and a half years ago, we’d never even met each other” he soon remarks, lifting his face toward his wife, the smile his child’s presence brings made a permanent fixture upon his face, “and all this time later, I’d die for the two of you without a second thought.” A grin of her own carried as best as the weight of exhaustion will allow her, Alicia gently pushes herself away from the counter and tiredly steps up to her husband, resting the side of her head against his bicep. “If you’d have told me back then I’d have a husband I adore and a baby I’d love more than anything in the world, I wouldn’t have believed you” Alicia replies, beginning to struggle with even recalling how those days felt now that they’re so far removed, “I’d have thought it was impossible.” His lumber-like forearms wide and long, Franklin gently settles the baby onto his dominant hand whilst guiding his opposite, stumped-end arm around his wife’s back. “I was trying to be Lieutenant Governor four years ago” the man retorts, hearing his beloved release a hushed laugh, “now I’m working the night shift in the communal kitchen. I’m living in a two bedroom apartment in Nova Scotia and have one less hand than I did then. I don’t think this was what I expected either.” The humour she takes from the response only deepening her subdued laughter, Alicia presses her forehead into the man’s arm as the air gets quiet again, their words falling out of favour to the peaceful silence they are wrapped within. Though they may be left standing in the middle of a quaint kitchen, spending little time together as they work shifts opposite each other, and have little time to catch even a few minutes of sleep, the couple finds themselves in the oddest place of comfort. “I wouldn’t trade it for the world, though” Franklin responds, interrupting the quiet minute with a continuation of his prior thought, “I’d lose the hand- hell, I’d lose both hands- if it just meant I could keep this.” Hearing their apartment’s front door open, Alicia lets her eyes shut in peace as her own hands move around her husband’s waist, holding him close as her body presses closer into his. “Sorry for being early. I don’t like hanging around my flat for too long” Salem remarks, rounding the corner with a cardboard box of diapers under one arm, a plastic bag with a few packages of baby wipes carried on the hand of the other. “You’re a lifesaver, Salem” Franklin murmurs quietly, matching their friend’s hushed tone with his own as she gently rests the box on the countertop. “Yeah, I’m just used to having to shoot someone to remind people of that” Salem replies, shrugging her shoulders as she passes the baby wipe-bag off to the mother, “I’m just glad Mr. Father of the Year over here works the night shift. I’ll always know someone is home here.” Her sleepy voice continuing to present itself, Alicia opens her eyes just briefly as she snuggles closer to the father’s side, “I took two minutes to open the door for you, give me a break” she jokes. “Oh, it’s fine. Don’t worry, I’ll just freeze to death in the hallway next time. It’s no biggie” Salem jokes back, watching her friend’s shoulders bounce as she holds in a giggle. “I’m going to assume he’s still got the same name?” the accomplished sniper wonders aloud, changing the topic as Franklin’s grin looks up at her. “Buddy William Haven-Carter” the man replies, watching their guest’s purposefully-disgusted and obviously-sarcastic eye roll meet his declaration. “That poor child” Salem jokes, watching the mother gently pull away from her husband and step over to attend to the diaper box sitting nearby, “he’ll grow up never knowing what people actually mean when they say ‘Ey, Buddy- c’mere.’” “It’s rather bold of you to assume our child will ever cross paths with someone from Boston” Franklin replies, soon taking his newly-freed second arm to support the baby, “and it’s even bolder of you to assume that the same Bostonian would be able to go three words without swearing.” “I’d imagine the Boston-form of English would be universally understood by that point” Salem jokes, stepping aside to let Alicia walk past with the baby-goods in tow, “they’d slip a ‘fuck’ in there between Buddy and c’mere. I think it’s a rule in their country.” His grin growing as the sight of his child prevents his humour from building to any laugh that can jostle the infant out of his slumber, Franklin gently rubs the nub of his shortened arm over his offspring’s lip, wiping the drool. After Alicia returns, the three adults and sleeping infant reside in a silent room, the child’s presence almost refusing to allow the world’s notoriously chaotic nature to disturb the peace. Not needing to utter a word, the trio of friends sit within the quiet apartment and let their eyes hold firm on the baby, the source of their shared serenity completely unaware of the horrors survived in order to bring his tiny, miracle self into the world he’s hoped to take part in changing. Through their shared strife, conflict, and the wars they’d seen together, the three survivors- for perhaps the first time since coming together- feel as though they are one person in a moment difficult to describe. Their eyes colliding, Salem and Alicia smile at each other from opposite sides of the room before the former’s eyes take toward the father, who meets her gaze after a few moments before redirecting it toward his wife, not a syllable spoken within the time. Through the battles and the breaths of fresh air, the conflicts and the compromises, the chaos and the clarity, the three survivors finally- for what feels like the first time ever- seem to be able to understand each other beyond the need of a word, but rather take a look and no more to hear what’s unsaid. Together, at peace and with pleasure, the family within a family let the environment do the speaking for them, providing warmth, shelter, and hope in a world they’d fought to see such. “I should start heading out” Alicia finally speaks, interrupting the silence out of necessity and she uncrosses her arms, pulling away from a nearby wall to embark upon an adventure to the adjacent living room. “What time are you working until?” Salem questions, following the woman’s lead whilst the skyscraper of a man slowly carries on in their shadow. “It’s a twelve hour shift- five to five” Alicia responds, flipping on a light switch to make up for the sun that’s yet to rise, “the world still shies away from nudity- even now. Someone’s gotta make the clothes they cover up with.” Humoured, Salem follows the woman into the next room and watches her take a seat in an even-warmer communal room, watching her slip one foot into a sock at a time beside a set of winter boots. “I suppose it’s better than having no job” the beloved family friend replies, taking a seat on the side of the couch closest to the flat’s exit. “We can’t all be as lucky as you, Salem” Alicia jokes, rolling the second sock up the length of her shin before slipping both feet into the boots she begins to lace, “no matter where you go, someone’s always gonna need a lady with a steady hand and impeccable aim at the ready.” With no reply, Salem pulls the corners of her mouth into whatever smile she can craft, trying to conceal her displeasure for the truth behind the remark. “Besides, it’s a relatively comfortable job- especially for me” Alicia continues, finishing the laces on one boot before moving to the other as her husband finally makes it into the room, “I sit down at a machine all day sewing clothes together while listening to jazz on an old record player. It’s not a bad gig.” “And it pays pretty well for a job that seemed obsolete just a couple of years ago” Franklin replies, taking his shortened arm away from beneath the other and lifting his wife’s winter coat off the nearby rack. “Most jobs were obsolete just a few years ago and pay better than anything did back then” Salem replies, one leg crossed over the other and an arm draped over the side of their couch, “but that’s why neither of you are making what Jack and Lauren are.” “Jack and Lauren don’t work for anyone other than Jack and Lauren” Alicia replies, stepping off the couch and graciously accepting the coat she’s handed by her husband, “they make their credits and that’s it.” “We work for employers that pay just as much with product as they do with credits” Franklin retorts quietly, shrugging in the direction of the kitchen, “it’s why I get paid a few credits less than people that don’t walk away with that bucket of groceries I just stuck in the fridge.” Nodding as she bounces the foot draped over her leg, Salem looks up at the man with a lowered voice as she sinks further into the couch, not expecting to get off of it for quite some time. “My point has nothing to do with the cost, it’s the employment’s value” Salem replies, redirecting the conversation from one unintended path to what’s desired, “I know Jack and Lauren aren’t given a basket of food every day, but do you really think they’d be making fifty thousand credits every month or so making chainmail sets in the old world?” “They’d be working at a snail’s pace and making a couple hundred a month at best- if that” Alicia corrects, all three of the apartment’s inhabitants maintaining the whisper in their voice. “Exactly. But because they bought a shitload of chain rings, and because there’s a practical use for the armour now- they can” Salem proceeds, “and in the meantime, the siblings make due with fishing, Emilio and Courtney make due in the underground market, and I guard the border wall.” “Fly high, free bird” Franklin jokes, watching the amused grin come over one side of Salem’s face before leaning in to kiss his wife, “and you just make sure to come home in one piece.” Responding with no less than a wink, Alicia sets her sights on the infant within her husband’s arms, gently taking the child’s hand with her fingers and holding it, “I’ll see you in a little bit, Bud” “Where’s my goodbye?” Salem jokes, extending her arms out as if to feign surprise and betrayal, shaking her head with disappointment as the woman approaches. Leaning in and wrapping her arms around the woman’s neck to hug her, Alicia kisses her friend on the cheek and pats the top of her head, the few gentle taps prompting an eye roll to come over the renowned sniper. “Now honey, hand Salem the baby and go take a nap” Alicia quips, pointing her finger in the man’s direction before guiding it toward their generous visitor, “and you- make sure he takes a nap.” With two fingers to her forehead, the appreciated nanny salutes the departing woman and keeps herself quiet, letting Franklin softly wave the sleeping infant’s hand toward his exiting mother until the door closes. “Alright you big lug- go to bed” Salem remarks, immediately shaping her arms in a way the baby can tolerate whilst sleeping, previous leg cross still held as the man sighs, leaning down to hand the child off to his temporary caregiver. “Just wake me up when the sun rises, won’t you?” Franklin requests, the casual and dismissive nod he receives being all that’s necessary to convince him to truth her with the task. Nodding to himself, Franklin departs the living room and begins pulling his sweatshirt off, leaving his child in the caring arms of his rather rugged aunt-by-selection. “‘Sup, Bud” Salem murmurs, softening her hold on the baby so her arms act more like a cradle than a table the infant is laid upon, “I’m sure this will probably change with time, but for a kid with a black dad and a white mom, you are much whiter than I was expecting you to be.” Not responding, the infant remains what it is- a child- that Salem voices her unresponded-to thoughts aloud for. “While I’m being honest, I might as well let you know that you also surprise me with how cooperative you are” the woman confesses, her shoulder-length hair freed from the ponytail it’s often been tied into over recent months, “hopefully you’ll still be that cooperative when your mom and dad let me teach you how to shoot a rifle.” Smiling at her own joke since no one else will, Salem lifts her head and stares at the wall opposite her, no company to speak with and no second party to share her thoughts with- at least, none that will respond to her. Her teeth beginning to fall behind her lips once again, the woman’s amused gaze becomes more distant and blank as the seconds pass, a discontent held within her steady pupils. “I spend a lot of my days like this” she voices, eyes soon pulling to the side and affording her the unobstructed view of a dark sky still hours away from dawn, the only sight she’s afforded being the lights of nearby residential towers between the flat she occupies and the heavens she resides beneath. “If I’m being honest, I spend most of my time like... Well, like this” Salem admits, speaking to the only person she can take solace in knowing doesn’t understand what she’s saying. “Alone. I spend most of my time alone as if, I don’t know-” she confesses, the discontent expression on her face beginning to lower into one of disappointment, “-as if I’m never actually home.” The baby resting in her arms as her arms rest upon her lap, Salem continues to stare out at the world beyond the window, able to see the faintest few white flakes of snow as they pass the transparent divider, watching them fall to earth just as everything does. = Rise is created by Zachary Serra, all rights to the series belong to Zachary Serra and the entity of Pacer1 from the start of Season 3 onwards = “I don’t like being out there without it at all” Katie replies, walking through the hallway her apartment resides near the end of, a guest following closely behind. “It was still just three days” Harvey quips, half of a smile held on his face as he follows the woman to her flat, listening to the keys jingle in her hands as she searches for the one that goes to her apartment’s front door, “I’m sure that was like a lifetime for you, but I don’t think a rifle is something you can crave.” “It’s not something I crave as much as it is something that I don’t like being without” Katie replies, finally coming across the key she’d searched for, “and that applies double when I’m without it for three days on a boat floating down the St. Lawrence.” With a hand halfway tucked into his pocket, Harvey watches the woman twist the tiny piece of metal in the deadbolt lock before peering down the direction they’d come from. “You had been asking for a few weeks if you’d ever get to go back down to Orleans Island” he retorts, watching the woman open the door and step through before following suit, “ask, and ask, and ask, and you shall rece-” Falling silent, Harvey enters the apartment in a suit and finds the living room occupied, his partner’s rigid freeze mid-step preventing him from walking any further. “Where the hell have you been?” Max inquires, sitting in a chair opposite the couch that Blaise and Aude occupy, an eyebrow lifted at his roommate for a moment before his confusion becomes held firmly upon the man in the suit that accompanies her, “and who is that?” Mouth agape, Katie stares at the group in the living room without a response, her eyes eventually coming upon the flat’s distant wall. Unsure of how to react, Harvey keeps his mouth shut and waits for the woman to reply, the brief second she spends in silence turning into multiple, the longer she goes without offering an answer only making the odd interaction increasingly off-putting. “I’m sorry, where are my manners?” the man replies, taking over for the woman as he steps past the woman frozen stiff in the doorway, his hand extended to the man proposing the inquiry. “I’m Harvey, Katie’s-” he confesses, the introduction falling short when he blanks on an answer, uncertain over what his colleague had or had not said, “-boyfriend.” “Boyfriend?” Blaise quips, the first of the group to speak, his eyebrows furrowed as the man’s hand pulls out from that of the roommate, “aren’t you like- ten years older than her?” Softening up to the surprise of the collection gathered within her living room, Katie begins to thaw from the freeze the shock had sent her into, gathering her bearings as the courage to speak returns to her. “We’re just testing the waters” Katie responds, trying to cut the conversation between the two sides of her world as short as possible, “I’ve got to go get my rifle, and then we’ll both be out of your hair.” Standing upright from the forward-lean position he’d taken to reach Max’s level, Harvey tucks his hand back into his pocket as the woman departs, leaving him to the mercy of her peers. “Are you going to answer the question?” Aude inquires, sitting beside her husband with a glass of wine in hand, waiting as the rest of the room does in receiving a reply. “Uh, no- I’m not ten years older than her” Harvey replies, bobbing his head in a nod before a follow up question is raised. “How much older are you?” Max asks, doubling down on Blaise’s original question with his arms crossed, the query coming off more like an interrogation than anything else. “Ah, I uh-” Harvey responds, turning his body quickly toward his acquaintance’s direction, clearly put off by the grill-like oven he’d been placed into, “thirteen years.” His face sour as if tasting a bad candy, Max lifts his chin slightly whilst the woman in the nearby corridor scrambles to retrieve her weapon as quickly as possible. “We met at a bar a few weeks ago” the suited agent of the island’s interest remarks, trying to cover his skin as best as he can, “she seemed cool enough.” “Cool enough to what? Fuck like a rabbit?” Max inquires, eyebrows lifting higher than Blaise’s can furrow, unable to receive an answer before the sound of his roommate’s skull crashing against one of the closet’s screwed-in shelves resonates through the room. “Ow!” Katie grunts, powering through the pain to free her partner from the clearly uncomfortable situation she’d unintentionally walked him into, “I’m alright!” “Good” Max replies, not wearing the expression of a man who cared one way or the other, “we wouldn’t want you to be helpless around company, would we?” Rolling her eyes, Katie frees her rifle and tucks a box of ammunition into the bag she wears at her side. “Je suis assez vieux pour baiser qui je veux comme un lapin, Max” the young woman mutters aloud, making sure the closet she speaks into can’t muffle her voice, “Tu as encore plus de chance qu'il ne parle pas français.” “Yeah, I still can’t speak French that well either, Katie” Max retorts, an audible dislike carried in the tone of his voice, though Blaise’s extended hand gestures that he’ll break it down for him when in the clear. “I’m sure our friends will let you know” Katie replies, pulling herself free from the mid-hallway storage space in a hurry, “et pour info, parle de moi comme si j'étais un gamin, et je le ferai dans la chambre la prochaine fois. Allez-y et décomposez celui-là pour lui, vous deux.” Throwing the rifle over her shoulder, Katie takes her business partner by the hand and leads him through the door as Max’s angry expression begins to shift whilst he turns to Blaise, clearly lost in translation. Slamming the door shut upon her exit, the young woman begins marching the way they’d come before realising her acquaintance refuses to follow along, instead remaining standing just beyond her apartment’s front door. “I thought your roommates were never home at this time of day?” Harvey inquires, begging his question and slowly catching up to his partner the moment he sees her turn back to look for him. “Yeah, well today must’ve clearly been an exception” Katie responds, bobbing her head in the direction they’ve still yet to re-travel, “now can we go?” With an amused smirk on his face, Harvey stays quiet for the moment as his second hand tucks into his pocket, “one more thing” he replies, watching the woman stop halfway down the hall and wait for him to catch up. Letting his eyes follow the pattern of the rug he walks the length of, the suited gentleman closes in on Katie and turns his smirk into a smile, shrugging as he provides her with a verbal answer on his way passing her. “I can speak French” Harvey confesses, able to see the woman’s cheeks begin to blush as he passes her, continuing to walk forward as he doubles down on his claim, “et pour info, je préfère le faire sous la douche.” | “Ugh, where are they?” a man dressed in all black inquires, passing the question off to his friend, who leans against a wall off to the side with a lit dart between his fingers. “Can’t you have some patience, man?” the smoker responds, his body the only one caught beneath the light of an overhead bulb whilst his friend lingers half within it and the shadows. “I told you these guys are reliable” the cigarette-puffing resident persists, stepping up to his friend with both arms extended outward, “would it pain you to just trust me the slightest bit?” Shaking his head as he rolls his eyes, the clean-lunged citizen turns away from his partner and casually strolls to the other side of the alley, what he lacks in a verbal response being made up for in his physical demonstration. “I have a hard time trusting people I’ve never met before” the first man replies, turning back to face his friend whilst speaking, “that applies double when it’s people we’re trying to barter underground in the middle of the night!” Pulling a drag, the second man shakes his head and stares toward the sky as his hands fall to each side, the smoke leaving through his lips as a set of wheels audibly squeal to a stop in the near distance. “Told ‘ya” the smoker quips, taking pleasure in being proven good on his word as he joins his friend in facing the alley’s end, watching a pair of shoes make contact with the asphalt recently wetted by a now-passed rainstorm. “How do you know they have our shit?” his friend replies, still sceptical of the figures that meet at the vehicle’s trunk, having stepped out of the backseat to retrieve a briefcase equally cast in a shadow as they are. “Because this isn’t the first deal I’ve done with them, and this isn’t the riskiest thing I’ve bartered” the negotiation’s strongest ally replies, lifting up a carton of cigarettes with half of its plastic ripped. “Cigs are worth just as much as credits are if you find someone that needs them bad enough” he continues explaining, looking at the side of his friend’s face whilst the other man’s eyes freeze upon the approaching figures, “they may not need them, but they’ll know who does.” Spending the next few seconds in silence, the men dressed in dark clothing and willing to wait through a muggy evening in Nova Scotia watch their trading partners close in, their persons becoming more visible the closer they draw to a nearby building’s light. “Are you gonna introduce us to your friend, Mickey?” a woman inquires, joining alongside her acquaintance as he carries the load for her. “Both of you- this is Dave” Mickey replies, pulling another drag off his dart before gesturing his hand toward the man beside him, “Dave- these two are Emilio and Courtney.” Finally drawing close enough to see the pair, the sceptical resident nods toward the man and woman lingering before his eyes. “You smoking our darts, Mick?” Emilio wonders aloud, lifting the briefcase into both hands and unlatching its two sides, opening it to reveal six bottles of pills amongst other small goods. “Here’s the credit for it” Mick replies, putting the cigarette between his lips whilst reaching into his pocket, a mere ten credit bill handed to his business partner, “and these are all branded?” Accepting the bill, Emilio nods his head and tucks the credit into his pocket whilst his friend responds, “these things didn’t even make it to shelves. We got our guy to slip us a few bottles right out of the factory” Courtney answers, watching a satisfied lift of the eyebrow react to her. “What did I tell you, Dave?” Mickey chirps, turning to look at his friend before extending the ten-pack of darts to Courtney, graciously accepting the briefcase that now finds a home in his hands. “How do I know these people won’t snitch on us?” Dave replies, looking at his friend whilst those they share the alley with look up with confusion, a brief glance at each other making their loss clear. “Why would we need to snitch on you?” Emilio inquires, looking at the sceptical man without certainty over what’s being gotten at, “you didn’t steal these things, did you?” “No, no!” Dave replies, waving his hands to match the tone in his voice, almost insulted by the question, “why would we have stolen them?” Parting his lips, Emilio finds himself falling silent as the response he was set to give is voiced by more familiar acquaintances. “Because none of this is illegal. Nova Scotia regulates the credits, but some people prefer this route- goods and services for goods and services” Mickey explains, “it’s only illegal when the goods were obtained by theft.” “I’m gonna take it he’s new here?” Courtney wonders aloud, an eyebrow raised as her thumbs slip into the belt-less loops of her jeans, glance set upon their shared acquaintance. “Just rolled in a few weeks ago. He’s been trying to get settled in and wanted to know the easiest way to get by” Mickey explains, casually tucking a hand into his pocket whilst the other waves through the air as he speaks, “they don’t really have a currency out in Waterboro.” “Yikes, he’s in from Maine?” Courtney laughs, hearing the breathy chuckle Emilio responds with whilst looking back, shaking her head as her eyes wave through the air, “he doesn’t have the stick up his ass right now, does he?” “We’re not prudes like everyone makes us out to be” Dave retorts, defending his home community before passing a look to his acquaintance. “I’ve been trying to tell him that working for pay and carrying on is fine, but he’s not gonna have much room for upward mobility” Mickey explains, what he remarks sparking an agreeable nod over the bartering partners, “half the compound runs on credits, half run on bartering. Make nice with people, figure out what they want, and do business.” “It’s an easy way to keep Nova Scotia from getting their nose into your business too far” Emilio doubles down, speaking to the younger man of semi-sceptical nature, “we had recessions in the old world. If we had a bigger ‘barter culture’ back then, we might’ve recovered economically a lot sooner.” “How would I know what things are worth more than others?” Dave questions back, beginning to put aside his doubts in the people he speaks with, instead looking for insight. “Everything has a price to someone. I probably can’t buy a gun off you with this carton of darts, but I could find someone else that would make that deal” Emilio responds, a shrug in his shoulders as he hands the ten-pack to his colleague, “some things are more universally valuable than others, but everything’s got a price.” “What are you, kid? Eighteen?” Courtney quickly adds, receiving her answer in only a nod, “you’ve got a clean slate here. Just make good on your deals, and people won’t shy away from doing business with you. You’ll find a good handful that’ll trade just about anything for the same thing, so just be sure to keep a good supply of whatever that is and you’ll have a nice little trading buddy to depend on for when you really need something.” “Is that why you two trade together?” Dave wonders aloud, trying to ease his way into the world his friend is trying to present him the ropes of. “Em here used to be a politician. Aside from being a good, dependable friend- he’s got his way of appearing presentable” Courtney chirps, turning to look at the smile that widens on her friend’s face. “Is this your brother? Or maybe a cousin?” the highly-regarded friend of Courtney’s inquires, turning to look at the shake of Mickey’s head, “oh, you’re still too young to have a kid this old. Come on, spill the beans. Is he your nephew or something?” “Nah, man. I appreciate you thinking so highly of me, though” Mickey jokes, sharing a chuckle with the man standing across from him, “no, he’s a good friend’s nephew. He got really good at crafting bullets when he got into Waterboro. Eventually he got here.” “What happened to the friend? They still out in Waterboro?” Emilio replies, genuinely curious at first, only to find a rather disheartened look come over the younger man’s face amidst the pause he’s initially returned. “No, actually- she died” Mickey replies, flicking the dead end of his dart off before returning it to his lips, speaking as he puffs, “shit hit the fan after Sun City fell. They got across the sound, but she got bit somewhere in New Hampshire. Passed a ways out from Waterboro.” “You were in Sun City?” Emilio queries almost immediately, head turning to allow his eyes a better look at the younger man close by. “Only for a little while. We got in a few months before the riots started” Dave responds, speaking as if the community’s downfall were just an unfortunate turn of events instead of the easily-avoidable disaster it was, “Seth never came back. No one was in charge and a lot of people just disappeared. Then people started shooting and we left.” “That sounds awful” Courtney responds, an apologetic sympathy carried in the eyes that she holds on the survivor ahead, “I’m sorry that happened to you.” Tilting his head to the side for a brief moment, Dave lets his eyes fall to the ground as droplets of water begin falling from the heavens once more, “I guess it all worked out in the end. People had been telling us the camp was going to fall even when we first got in” he explains, “I never thought we were gonna be there long anyway.” Lips pressing together, Courtney fails to offer much in the way of a reply, knowing just as her colleague does that nothing will change the loss he’d been forced to suffer through. “This place is functional. It’s well guarded and well provided for. Nova Scotia’s far more than just another experiment like Sun City” Mickey remarks, digging the discontent out of his negotiating partners with a more hopeful tone, “at least there’s a future for him here that there wasn’t out there.” Lifting his eyebrows briefly, Emilio nods along with the man’s words without much in the way of hopeful verbiage to offer, paying the man an affable smile whilst the rain continues to fall. Eventually having wound up in the backseat of their shared vehicle, the bartering partners remain silent, Courtney’s eyes keeping on the window she sits closest to, watching the raindrops glide across the glass whilst her colleague stares forward with his hands coupled in his lap. “Hey, driver- can you stop about three blocks up ahead?” Emilio calls out, leaning forward slightly to better catch their chauffeur's ear. “Are you good?” Courtney wonders aloud, watching the man ready himself to depart in favour of his requested destination. “Yeah, I think I just need to get some air, y’know? Walk a little bit” the man replies, feeling the weight of the car thrust gradually as the vehicle slows to a stop. “Out there in the pouring rain? In Prince Edward Island? Are you sure?” Courtney replies, dismissing her friend’s understanding nod at first, “you do realise almost everyone here exclusively speaks French, right?” Continuing to bob his head with acceptance over what he’s being informed of, Emilio pulls the handle to his door whilst the tires come to a full stop. “I have some friends that live around here. I’ll stay with them for the night when I’m done, I just-” he remarks, pausing for a moment to gather his thoughts as his first foot makes contact with the ground outside, “-I just need some time to myself.” Lifting her eyebrows in defeat, Courtney shrugs her shoulders and sits back into her seat, accepting the man’s conclusion and granting him the freedom to follow through on what he desires. With his hands in the pocket of his jacket, Emilio watches the car drive off without him inside, taking solace in the serenity that comes with his seclusion. The cold air making it impossible to see more than a few centimetres ahead without a foggy cloud of breath blocking his sight, the man begins walking through the dark, late-February night. | “Sure, but it’s not like the pay is that much better” Lauren responds, having to speak a little louder than her usual tone, battling for audible supremacy with a nearby speaker system, “unless it’s really worthwhile, I don’t get working the night shift.” With a smirk in the corner of her mouth, Salem lifts a bottled beer to her lips and takes a swig, letting the glass bottom reconnect with the table with a satisfied sigh. “If you’re gonna go outside the walls, you might as well do it when everything is quiet” she replies, staring at the bottle’s label knowing full-well that it doesn’t read the brand name of the liquor she puts down, “you can’t really do that when everyone is out and about.” “You mean the quiet part, right?” Jack wonders aloud, wanting to be sure his train of thought was following the correct tracks. “Yeah. It’s a lot quieter at night after most people have gone to sleep” Salem responds, nodding in the man’s direction as she inspects the bottle’s label once more, “I’m pretty sure most of the night life is closer to the compound’s centre. The outskirts are where all the guard stations are. Unless you’re on duty, you’re probably asleep somewhere farther out.” “And you like it that way?” Lauren queries, one foot pressing against the table’s supporting stand, its cylindrical concrete self cemented into the floor, “isn’t it a little eerie when it’s both quiet and pitch black?” “It’s not like we don’t have spotlights” Salem corrects, shrugging as she sits more upright upon her stool, “but the weird feeling- just being out there alone at night- is kind of oddly peaceful.” Holding their own beliefs in that conclusion, Jack and Lauren choose to reserve it deep within themselves, allowing the woman to stare blankly at the bottle she continues eying as if it’d murdered her family. “I miss being out there. I don’t know what it is, but I just never feel entirely satisfied being stuck inside these walls all the time” Salem quips, the natural fondness she has for the freedom of the chaotic and unsorted world having never truly died, “couple that with the fact that she is in charge of this place, and I’ve got my reasons to be sceptical too.” “Oh, don’t even get me started on that woman” Jack remarks, his redirection of the conversation one that quietly pleases the highly-regarded sniper, who finally looks away from her drink to set her sights upon the man to her right. “I can live with having to accept that she’s in charge of this place as long as there are long gaps in between when I have to see her or hear her name” he persists, “but what she did to Tyler, or what she did to Janice- that will never sit right with me.” “It shouldn’t” Salem reassures, slowly spinning the bottle atop the table by the rim with her index finger and thumb, “we all have our issues with Charlotte, but there’s no point in getting too worked up over something we’ll never change.” His finger lifting into the air, Jack opposes that notion, “not necessarily” he remarks, using the silence that follows his friend’s explanation as an opening to voice his desired dissent, “it’s not like we haven’t pushed her out of power before.” “Yes, but it shouldn’t take too much of a recollection to remember how poorly that worked out” Lauren replies, her slightly-defensive husband debating her point. “I’m not saying we should, I’m saying we could” Jack corrects, pausing the lift of his drink toward his lips as his eyes pass between the two women within his company, “but our days of overthrowing regimes are over. The whole point is just trying to build some future we can look forward to. One worth living in.” Her bottle lifting into the air, Lauren salutes her boyfriend’s proclamation with silence, watching the gesture he returns match her own. Smiling, she takes to the rim of her beverage just as her other half does, drinking to the words uttered whilst their friend remains silent, staring at the label on her bottle’s exterior. With the nail on her middle finger, Salem peels at the edge of the plastic-like branding, the thought that’s held in her head soon voiced aloud for her peers to overhear. “What if there isn’t one?” she inquires, looking up from the glass container in her hand to find both eyes falling over her, finding a woman not backing down from the question she offers in search of an answer. “What if you care so much about people that you’re willing to pretend to want the same thing as them?” Salem clarifies, doubling down on her quandary, “what if you’d never be happy doing the same thing they’re doing, but you also can’t live without them?” The sip he’d taken now put down, Jack sets his glass bottle back on the table whilst his wife remains stoic, her beer held at chest-level as he eyes remain glued to their pal. “I guess it would depend on who’s asking” the man responds, his other half’s eyes now taking toward him whilst he attempts to reply, “if this is just a general question, my answer would be one thing. If this is a specific person we’re talking about, it’d be an entirely different thing.” “Why does the answer have to depend on the person?” Salem retorts, not seeming to care much over concealing the inspiration behind the question that seems to dampen the entire discourse, “why can’t there just be a ‘one size fits all’ answer.” “Because a random person isn’t someone that I- or anyone from our group- would have that fond of an attachment to” Jack answers, aware of the pause that comes over the table before he can proceed with his thought, “depending on the person, though- we might be as uninterested in losing her as she is of losing us.” Keeping to herself as the conversation reaches another pause, Lauren takes her gaze toward the woman sitting to her right, watching the eyes of the puzzled figure retake to the bottle she soon places upon the table. Looking at the hardwood finish of the countertop, Salem keeps her lips pressed together and refuses to speak further, preferring to keep to herself for the time being as she collects her thoughts. “I think I’m gonna head home for the night” she soon confesses, stepping off of her stool as the couple’s silence persists, “I don’t get many chances to sleep through the night. I might as well take them when they come up, right?” Aware of the woman’s discomfort, Jack concedes his side of the argument and nods, trying to feign a friendly chuckle and smile, “yeah, you’re probably right” he retorts, watching the woman’s coat fly through the air before it hugs her body. Having made it back to her flat in one piece, Salem sits in an old chair with her right leg propped atop a matching ottoman, her left arm tucked behind her head as her pale face glows in the flames of her fireplace. Without the obstruction of any sound to distract her from the tranquillity she finds in the concept of a thoughtless existence, the woman’s peace of mind remains intact as an unopened book sits on her left thigh, her right one occupied by the resting hand not supporting her skull. *knock knock knock* Alerted to the presence at her door, Salem’s head takes toward the entrance’s direction and lets free a sigh, clicking her tongue before begrudgingly lifting herself from the comfort of her seat and the warmth of the fire. “Hey” Alicia remarks, watching her friend’s face appear from behind the door that swings open, granting her entry the apartment’s tenant hadn’t been expecting. “What’s up?” Salem wonders aloud, slightly confused and surprised by her acquaintance’s appearance, though more than welcoming enough to immediately make for the kitchen. “Not much. Franklin left a little while ago to get to work, so I decided to swing by” Alicia responds, carrying the small lump of human she’d birthed within the comfort of a tiny, warm coat. “Oh, I see” Salem responds with an amused chuckle, reaching for a pair of whiskey glasses and a nearby bottle of rum, “Jack and Lauren must’ve called you.” With a shrug, Alicia approaches a bookshelf in the cosy living room and looks into a picture frame, the stock photo of a woman holding her baby high into the air having never been removed from the elegant border. “I told them not to worry too much, but they wouldn’t let me off the phone until I agreed to come over” Alicia replies, hearing the liquor pour into the glasses from the next room over with a grin, “so, in the event that they ask you, just tell them that I got on my hands and knees and begged you to reconsider your choices.” “Noted” Salem answers, accepting the proposition before returning to her friend with a glass in each hand, the one in her non-dominant palm extended to her guest. “The place is a lot nicer than it was when you first moved in” Alicia chirps, bowing her head to the woman as she takes her drink, clinking the rim against her friend’s own before gesturing toward the wider room, “aside from the stock photograph, you’ve turned this place into Salem’s Den quite well, if I do say so myself.” “Well, were people really expecting me to just live in a place that was- aside from the bathroom- painted pink?” Salem inquires, shaking her head in refusal before taking a sip of her beverage, “this town would’ve been lit on fire before I’d agree to that.” Amused, Alicia watches her pal approach the fireside chair and remove the closed book from it, freeing it for her visitor to occupy whilst taking a seat on the ottoman. “Irritating you is the last thing a thriving community needs for itself. We don’t exactly have a great track record when it comes to these places” she doubles down, gently lowering herself into the open chair so as not to disturb the sleeping infant, “provoking our secret weapon isn’t the best long-term planning strategy.” Humoured, Salem nods along with the joke before taking another sip of her beverage, remaining quiet whilst letting the discourse take whatever direction it’s naturally set to veer toward. “You’ve been settling in well enough around here though, right?” Alicia inquires, watching the woman’s eyes lift toward her as she ponders aloud, “Jack and Lauren make some stuff sound so doomsday-ish.” “Why? What did they- and their infinite wisdom- say?” Salem hastily queries, watching her friend dismissively jostle her head at each side. “Nothing like that from what I can remember, but I wasn’t really focusing on all the filler. Franklin was just heading out so, y’know- I was just trying to get to the point” the new mother answers, her shoulders low and relaxed, “but it sounded like they were insinuating you weren’t happy here. Like you didn’t feel like you belonged.” “I see” Salem answers, lowering her face toward the ground yet again, nodding to the implication before raising the drink back toward her lips, “a lot of that Sheol-era stuff, huh?” “Pretty much” Alicia reassures, kicking one leg over the other as her friend takes yet another sip, already further into her drink than the tired mother is, “it’s not true though, is it? You’re making due here?” The question raised, Salem looks up to find her pal’s eyes looking at her, mouth closed and waiting for her ears to receive the answer. “You guys are my family. You’ve been my family for years now. You and Franklin- and the kiddo- especially” Salem responds, wearing the best dismissive smile she can think to conjure up, “there isn’t one bit of me that feels like I don’t belong with you guys.” Wiping her bottom lip with the tip of her thumb, the flat’s sole resident listens to the crackling fire amidst a brief silence, her digit stained with the run droplet she’d wiped away. “What about here?” Alicia wonders aloud, watching the woman’s eyes collide with her once more, taking note of the specifics she was paid and refusing to let the unspoken remain so, “do you feel like you belong here? In Nova Scotia?” Opening her mouth to match her parted eyelids, Salem soon breaks into a smile as she looks to the ground again, the distanced eye contact not allowed to persist at the reemergence of the mother’s voice. “Look at me” Alicia commands, prompting her fireside fellow to follow through with just an order, waiting for her guest to proceed with her question, “do you feel like you belong in Nova Scotia?” Quiet and still, Salem stares into her friend’s eyes without a response to offer, the question raised by the one woman closer to her than any other refused the answer it was voiced to receive. “Salem-” Alicia begins to speak, her lips parted to proceed with her words before they close yet again, kept from speaking as the woman across from her finally breaks the momentary spell of silence. “No, I don’t” Salem confesses, her voice less friendly and more declarative, a calm tone carried with the assertive voice and confident remarks paid by the freedom-craving civilian. “I didn’t feel like I belonged in Sun City, and I’ve felt the same way about Cumberland and about here” she continues, shaking her head as her eyes reconnect with the distance walls she’d covered up with endless rows of bookshelves, “I love you, and Franklin, and everyone else. I just don’t love this.” “And by this, you mean Nova Scotia” Alicia replies, wanting to make certain she understands the implications within her friends’ remarks. “I mean society. I mean all of this law and order stuff. I’m not- I’m not- I’m not a citizen. I never was in the old world and I’m definitely not now” Salem admits, her heart poured out in the restrained way only she can manage, “the only time I’d ever actually felt like I was somewhere I belonged was when I was out there.” “Exactly how long do you expect there to be an out there to yearn for?” Alicia inquires, shrugging as she glances off at the nearest window, “Nova Scotia exists. The day is bound to come when everything out there either gets claimed by them, or someone else that managed to rebuild what we used to have in some new, weird way.” “That day isn’t going to come for a long time” Salem corrects, lifting the glass back to her lips as she replies, “the old world died five years ago and only now is there a compound thriving. The day the globe is resettled by other communities big enough to span every last bit of land will come long after I’m gone.” “Yeah, and if you were to go back out there today, that day could very well come tomorrow. Or it could come the day after that, or the week after, or that month after, so on and so forth” Alicia interjects, her own point interrupted by the woman across from her before it could truly get going. “Don’t worry- I’m not leaving” Salem cuts in, pulling the drink from her lips as she steps off the footrest being used as a seat, “there’s a difference in what I want and what I’m actually going to do.” “That doesn’t really make matters better, does it?” Alicia questions, pushing herself out of the chair as she holds her child tight, “now you’re just sentencing a life where you’re perpetually unhappy.” Walking for the kitchen and placing her glass down for a refill, Salem presses her palms against the countertop and looks up at the ceiling, trying to keep her aggravation from rising as the baby begins to awaken from its nap, its crying beginning to start up. “What do you suppose I do then, Alicia?” Salem wonders aloud, unscrewing the cap to her liquor bottle before pouring herself another glass, “one isn’t sustainable, and the other one isn’t very bearable. So, exactly which way of living is less unhappy than the other?” Shushing the child down as best she can, Alicia tries to compose her thoughts whilst her friend watches on, waiting for the infant to be dealt with in order to receive her reply. “I bought diapers and a changing table in case you or Franklin needed to bring the kid over here. They’re in the bathroom down the hall- second door on the right” Salem remarks, her lower back pressing into the counter as she takes yet another drink. “Thank you” Alicia responds, putting the conversation on pause before directing herself down the nearby corridor, hurrying to care for the crying child as her friend hangs back, sitting with her thoughts of equal discontent. Before long, the silence that fills her kitchen lulls Salem into an anxious state of perplexity, wanting to think of anything other than the conversation just paused. From one room to the other, the uneasy and slightly-buzzed woman makes her way back into the living room and rests a hand on her chair, illuminated by the same glow of the fireplace that lights her own face. Eyes taking to the rising flames, the woman presses her lips shut and breathes through her nose, trying to calm herself from the tension that had quietly consumed her. The crackle and pop of the firewood being burned within the concrete confines its been set ablaze within calming her, Salem stands with an empty mind and relegates any thought to some corner of her mind, wishing to remain in this blank void she’d curated internally, finding more comfort in it than elsewhere. == Rise == “It’s a new week, Courtney” Charlotte remarks, walking down a large corridor composed of marble walls and granite columns, “how are Toronto talks coming along?”
“The supplying group is cooperating, but they’re sceptical of our intentions” Courtney retorts, following just a few centimetres behind the Nova Scotian leader, “amongst other things, it’s their belief that they’re just going to be used as pawns in the event these talks don’t amount to much.” Scoffing at the idea, Charlotte shakes her head as her every step is taken with the utmost confidence, “proving to be good on our word won’t happen over one weekend” she rebukes. “Which is why their scepticism is one of the lesser issues they have with doing business here” Courtney argues back, unaware of the eyeroll the woman she follows reacts with. “Of course there’s a myriad of issues a potential community-adjacent has with us” Charlotte replies, visibly annoyed at the repetitive cycle such hesitation seems to be yet another round of, “what else do they not like about us?” “Well amongst other things, they’re not pleased with having to split their gains fifty-fifty and they’re a bit upset at the idea of not handling their own deliveries anymore” Courtney clarifies, prompting the woman ahead of her to stop and turn around. “They’re lucky they’re not giving up more than fifty percent of their gains to us- we’re resupplying their livestock” Charlotte quips back, aware that the woman she speaks with is not the root of the issue, opting to calm her tone. “If it weren’t for our offered help, they’d be shelving out half-assed deliveries across their entire network” the ruler of society’s final stand remarks before turning back to proceed with her walk, “they’re lucky we don’t wipe them off the face of the earth and just commandeer wherever they’re staying.” “Unfortunately, it’s not just our business practises that irk them” Courtney informs, still unaware of the eye roll her words pry from the woman she speaks with. “Did I kill one of their family members or something? Are they just like your drinking buddy and have some hell-bent hatred for me?” Charlotte rebukes, the question spoken with sarcasm, though the inquiry is a genuine one. “Actually, no-” Courtney replies, trying quickly to finish her thought before the Nova Scotian creator can close the remaining distance between herself and their intended destination, “-it’s actually Gamble they have a problem with.” Her hand grasping the knob of the office door sitting to one side of the spacious corridor, Charlotte pans her eyes back to the right hand she’s set the compound’s greatest investments onto the lap of, eyes narrowed and voice low. As if unsure she’d heard her paramotorist shadow correctly, her hand releases the knob as her feet carry her to the hallway’s opposite side, their conversation paused in an effort of creating all the space they can between the office and their discourse. “Gamble? Why?” Charlotte wonders aloud, her whisper not low enough to mask the genuine confusion carried in her question, “no one even knows he’s of any importance other than you, me, and some people here and across the bridge.” Bowing her head as she clears her throat, Courtney lowers her voice to match her superior’s whisper whilst passing glances at the door still awaiting their entry. “Sure, maybe people in here doesn’t know he’s of any importance, but I think that’s starting to change out there” she responds, keeping her face held toward the ground, “George- the guy in charge of the people we talked with yesterday- said he lost a few men a couple of weeks ago out near Quebec City.” “If you’re about to tell me that Gamble murdered them, now might be a good time to stop talking” Charlotte interjects, not wanting to cloud her mind of the task still at large. “I don’t know what he did to them. George took a group out to the city and found some writing on top of the buildings. It told them to follow the St. Lawrence” Courtney reassures, eyes continuing to momentarily drift toward the office across from them, “he found a fleet of warships docked off an island.” “Warshi- our warships?” Charlotte replies in a hiss-like hush, another glance taken toward the door they’ve yet to step through. “George thinks they were our ships- which they technically are- but he doesn’t know it was Gamble manning them” Courtney proceeds, maintaining a hush before glancing past her superior’s head, “to him, we were up to something sketch. In reality, Gamble’s the cause of his worries. I promised him we had nothing to do with it, but Gamble might have.” Shaking her head as her tongue presses against the side of her inner cheek, Charlotte turns her eyes back toward the office as she lets the information settle, clearly aggravated at what’s being spoken. “Alright, we can’t let him know that we know this” she finally concedes, conjuring whatever temporary plan she can manage as duty awaits, “if he realises we know about him claiming land outside of Nova Scotia on our behalf, it might end badly. Let’s just keep up the charade for now.” “This isn’t a charade. We can pretend not to know about his expansion, but he’s still going to have possession of these territories. Playing dumb is really just us letting him keep them” Courtney replies, her disagreement welcomed with open arms by the compound’s leader, “besides, if he’s taking land out in Quebec, the likelihood of him taking ground that we’ll need to pass in order to get into position for a run at Newfoundland.” “If you have a better plan, I’m open to hearing it- but make it fast” Charlotte retorts, hands placed upon her hip whilst her dependable hand turns to look at the nearby office. “If we acknowledge that he’s taking land and let him keep it, he might be more open to negotiating” Courtney explains, shaking her head as her hand gestures toward the door, “he’s already against your leadership. Showing him that you’re willing to play ball might buy us time.” “But I’m not willing to play ball- that’s the issue” Charlotte retorts, shaking her head as she turns the woman’s point back on her, “it’s like you said, playing dumb is really just us letting him keep them. If there was something for us to gain out of it, then I could justify that. Taking back Newfoundland isn’t going to give us any real strategic advantage over him or the island. If anything, it’d just be spreading us even thinner in the event of an invasion.” “By that logic, there’s nothing that we can do until after Gamble’s been dealt with” Courtney concludes, a statement that her superior easily refuses to argue against. “And if that’s the case, we’re gonna need to get all of this settled as cleanly as possible. Even the faintest of casualties can be enough to spark a revolt back home” Charlotte proceeds, “which means we need to make the most out of whatever influence we have here, sink our teeth in tight, and wriggle him out of favour.” “And playing dumb is the way you want to go about that?” Courtney asks again, not doubting the woman’s conclusion, though leaving her the option of turning back with preference toward any alternative. “It’s not the way I’d prefer, but it’s the only way we have” Charlotte doubles down, nodding to her subordinate out of a place of shared respect, “let the man have his leverage for now, that’s fine. If letting him play pretend-leader keeps from blood being shed, so be it.” With her lips pressed together, Courtney looks into the displeased woman’s eyes and quietly comes to terms with the proposition, accepting the points made as final and continuing onward. Granted clearance to proceed with her close confidant’s nod, Charlotte steps forward and returns to their shared prior mission, hand reaching out for the door she steps across the corridor to take into a grasp, this time following through on turning it to allow herself entry. Seated behind a long table at the room’s centre with a pair of cheaters worn over his eyes, Gamble takes notice of his guest’s entry and passively waves at the on-duty guards to search them for weapons. “Run into traffic on your way across the strait, or was the intention to make me sweat out your arrival?” P.E.I’s leader inquires, watching his armed guards’ hands pat down the women’s extended arms and parted knees. “We had some important business back at home that we needed to sweep up” Charlotte replies, the only figure out of herself and her shadow expected to speak, “apologies for the tardiness.” Silent and stoic, Gamble lifts a loose piece of paper off a small stack of others before lowering his glasses on the bridge of his nose, freeing his line of sight to focus fully on the women. Silent, the man inspects the pair for a moment before jutting his chin toward the pair of empty seats across from him, gesturing for them to join him at the table as he folds his hands atop the papers. Following through on what was signalled for them to partake in, the women step up to the open chairs and lower themselves, sinking into the leathery cushions whilst their arms press against the leather-covered pads that rest atop each armrest. “I’m very busy, and I have just about ten minutes” Gamble begins, pulling his head back as he lifts his arms into the air, eyes staring at the watch on his wrist before he corrects himself, “-nine minutes.” Recoupling his hands just a short distance in front of himself, the man carries on with his end of the conversation, “make this meeting worthwhile and then leave me to my duties” he instructs, lowering his chin an almost unnoticeable degree, though lining his eyes with theirs, “let’s begin.” = Rise is created by Zachary Serra, all rights to the series belong to Zachary Serra and the entity of Pacer1 from the start of Season 3 onwards = Wearing a towel around his waist whilst rubbing a second one over the damp hair on his head, Max frees the post-shower steam from its confinement as he opens the bathroom door, stepping into the adjacent hallway his roommate’s bedroom sits at the end of. His hair beginning to grow out just slightly whilst the stubble spreading across his face speaks of a man having gone at least a week without a razor, the man’s hand takes toward the hallway closet just beside their washroom. Reaching out for the green cardboard box sitting near the edge of the first shelf within eyesight, Max’s attention soon sets upon the storage room’s side, taking notice of the confusing sight he sees stuffed into the tiny opening between the cubbies and inner wall. “Hey, Katie?” he asks aloud, calling out to the woman sitting in the room at the corridor’s end, an open door allowing her to find the man calling her name with the faintest upward glance. “Why is your rifle crammed into the corner of the closet?” Max wonders aloud, uninterested in building up to the question through humour, preferring to address the matter head on. “Because I needed a place to put it” Katie replies, pulling her legs close to her chest to better support the book she has both ends of pulled open, “where else would you want me to put it?” “Well, somewhere closer to you than the place we keep our towels and shampoo would be a good start, I suppose” Max replies with ease, the shake of his roommate’s head and the shrug of her shoulders implying her lack of issue. “Maybe if the dead had just stayed down and I lived in Baltimore, maybe then I’d prefer to keep a gun on me at all times” Katie responds, keeping her thumb in the page she’d left off reading as the ends of the book close, “we’re in Canada.” “We’re still surrounded by people. Don’t you think you’d want it on you if we were to get robbed or something?” Max inquires, watching the woman’s head pull back as her eyes squint. “Robbed? We live on the eleventh floor of a high rise apartment and the best item we own is a microwave” Katie rebukes, a smirk worn in the corner of her mouth as she speaks, “I think the burglar having to keep coming up eleven stories for valuable shit we don’t have would have more trouble than my gun.” “Are you telling me you wouldn’t want your gun on you in the event someone broke in?” Max questions, pressing his elbow against the closet door’s frame. “Of course I would, but I’m pretty sure a burglar dumb enough to rob this flat isn’t smart enough to worry me too much” Katie retorts, forearms pressing against the tops of each knee, “besides, you’re the man here. Isn’t it supposed to be your job to run off intruders? Isn’t that how chivalry- or something like that- works?” “Well, I’m pretty sure running off the burglar becomes the job of the woman when- oh, I don’t know- she has the gun” Max responds, watching his friend’s head bow as she laughs, “I may weigh a little more than two-forty, but I can’t throw myself at someone with the speed of a projectile.” “Alright, I accept defeat. Point taken” Katie confesses, lifting both hands into the air in a half-hearted show of surrender, attempting to reopen her book before overhearing the mechanisms in her rifle jostle from the hallway. “What are you doing?” she asks, watching the man- dressed in only a towel- try to gently free the gun from its nook in their shared hallway closet. “What? Don’t you want to have the gun somewhere closer?” Max inquires, speaking as if he’s aware there’s a chance he’d misheard the question. “No, keep it there” Katie doubles down, pressing two sides of pages against the thumbs she uses as a bookmark. “Why?” the confused, half-naked roommate wonders aloud, gently relieving his grasp of the firearm and returning it to the corner in which it was tucked into, “I don’t even understand why you’d put it in here and not your own closet.” “Because I use my closet for clothes. If I need a new pair of clothes, I have to go into the closet” Katie responds, the words she speaks not answering the questions that the ones she doesn’t leave behind. “But you still have to use this closet when you need a towel, or a bottle of shampoo, or whatever these other bottles do” Max rebukes, eyes pressing closer together and face scrunching, clueless as to what sense he’s missing out on as he stares at a litany of lotions and conditioners. “Yes, but I don’t have to go in that closet as often as I go into my own” Katie retorts, her words again failing to answer the questions that those unspoken leave on her roommates mind. Parting lips to speak, Max immediately falls silent, opting not to argue points he doesn’t understand, and instead takes a moment to make an attempt at deciphering the rationale himself. “So, your gun is stored in the communal closet because you have less access to it?” he utters, turning to look the woman in the eyes, left to believe he’d- despite it making little sense- come to the correct conclusion. “When you put it in simple terms- yes” Katie responds, eyes drifting to the side as she ponders her reply, inevitably coming back to fall on her friend, “I appreciate your understanding.” “It’s not so much an understanding as much as it was me doing the math” Max quickly reiterates, folding the towel he’d used to dry his hair off over one arm, standing in the corridor with his arm pressed against his chest to keep it draped, “why does that make sense to you?” Having already begun to reopen her book for the second time, Katie rolls her eyes and stares at the ceiling for a moment, taking less pleasure in the discourse born from the simple question asked minutes ago. “Well, it may not be Orleans Island, but this is still supposed to be home. As in permanent home” Katie replies, giving up on her attempt at reading as she reopens the pages for a third time, this attempt only serving to place a plastic card between the papers before they close once more. “If I’m supposed to start trying to settle into this, the last thing I need is to have a rifle on me at all times” Katie concludes, placing her book to her side just as her phone buzzes atop the nearby nightstand, “after all, I’ve pointed it at Astor’s throat enough times for one lifetime.” “Speaking of which, where is Astor?” Max wonders aloud with haste, the mention of the man’s name sparking an intrigue in his mind as Katie reaches to reclaim her phone, “I haven’t seen him since the day we docked.” Her best option of contact when arriving on Prince Edward Island being a flip phone, the woman opens the device’s lid and reads the message that pops up on her screen, replying to Max’s question as the text loads. “He’s got a seat on Gamble’s council. He set him up with a place to stay around the city’s outskirts” she answers, watching the words emerge over her screen as her tone takes on an obviously preoccupied presentation, “they’ve got a separate one from Nova Scotia.” Though his roommate’s earlier explanation of the weapon’s hiding place had confused him, Max takes notice of the business she must attend to and quietly bobs his head, carrying a razor with him as he returns to the washroom. “Great” Katie murmurs aloud to herself, just loud enough for herself to hear now that the bathroom door has been shut once more, eyes rolling as she closes the phone’s lid and sits against the headboard. Shaking her head, the woman’s hand tucks the phone into the pocket of her sweatpants as her opposite reaches to the nightstand she’d taken it from, opening the top-most drawer to retrieve the knife she’d stored within it, eyes setting on the bedroom’s exit she soon takes toward. | “You never negotiate in good faith” Gamble responds, hands remaining folded as he gently pushes the glasses he wears closer toward his eyes, directing them with the tip of his pinky. “I always negotiate in good faith- people just don’t like my intentions” Charlotte retorts, a half-smirk worn on her face as she leans into the table, hands coupled atop its glossy, hardwood finish, “but there’s always one side of the argument with more leverage than the other. Someone’s bound to be upset.” “You just so happen to mistakenly think that you’re on the side with the leverage” Gamble rebukes, matching the woman’s demeanour he leans further into the table, hands also folded atop its sleek surface. “Nova Scotia certainly has leverage, and by that- I mean both of our sides” Charlotte retorts, watching the man’s near-unnoticeable and cold grin, “because- whether you like it or not- Prince Edward Island is still a part of the greater New World Order strategy. That’s non-negotiable.” “It is until I decide otherwise, and you’re running out of wiggle room every single day” Gamble retorts, watching the woman across from him pucker her lips and nod to herself. “What you have over Prince Edward Island- other than land area- is population. For every one meat shield we have, you’ve got- what? Three or four?” he continues, his honesty affording him the pleasure of remaining uninterrupted, “when those numbers even out, your best hope will be in having more weapons.” “And losing Rockford doesn’t really help you on that front, does it?” a man from off to the side of the P.E.I leader quips aloud, his hands folded as he stands nearest Gamble’s left side. “Basham?” the stoic, glasses-wearing leader speaks aloud, not once moving his face from that of his Nova Scotian adversaries, “were you just attempting to speak on my behalf?” His silent stare firmly removed from the independence-desiring island’s visitors and set solely upon the back of his superior’s head, the man in the black suit and tie lets his hands uncouple from his lap. “No, sir- I was” Basham retorts, trying to explain himself before falling silent as he’s interrupted, listening to the voice of the man that he speaks to calmly address him. “I was just about to remind them of their failures with Rockford, Basham. I did not need you to tell them that on my behalf” Gamble calmly reiterates, his eyes remaining locked on the two faces across from him, though his chin is turned to slightest bit in the direction of the armed guard behind him. “I’m sorry sir. I was not aware of that” Basham concedes, more fearful of the man with the calm demeanour just metres ahead of him, knowing there to be an undisplayed rage buried within it. For a few seconds, not a word is uttered, and the man with his hands folded and eyes kept forward soon redirects his chin as well, turning his attention fully to the women sitting before him. Gently pulling his left hand from his right, Gamble takes the nails on his dominant hand to the skin on his right forearm, gracefully scratching the itch that sits atop his flesh before rejoining his hands on the tabletop, satisfied with the irritating discomfort’s release. “Basham?” Gamble calmly calls out once more, the tension that had built in the guard’s steadily rising shoulders now joining his neck as the man’s face turns toward his superior with worry. “Yes, sir?” the fear-ridden armed man replies, making sure to alleviate the stutter in his words that he so desperately struggles to hold back. “Leave” the statue-esque gentleman at the table remarks, his posture unwaveringly still in ways that only heighten the concern that builds within the standing servant. Turning her eyes toward the man who visibly hides the distress he attempts to quell, Charlotte joins the guards standing on duty beside the door in watching the troubled man, uncertain of how to feel internally at the display she witnesses. Keeping to herself throughout the ordeal, Courtney sits more relaxed in her seat than her superior does, eyes still falling upon Basham regardless, the simple-appearing and yet obviously anxious scene that unfolds proving too great to look away from. Remaining glued upon the two women, Gamble reacts to nothing, not caring to fill the void that is left by the unspoken undertones that the room is now plagued by the disease of. Looking away from the back of his superior’s head, Basham’s eyes fall upon the two women that stare in his direction, able to see that they at least partially recognise what’s being left unsaid in the moment. Unsure of what to do other than remove himself as per request, the man’s fight or flight response kicks in, his brain following through on its confused and dangerous coping process. “B- but, sir-” Basham mutters, stammering over the first word whilst remaining composed in his posture and weak in the knees, falling silent by the most easily-missable squeak in his boss’ chair. With ease and grace, Gamble turns his body to the left and calmly steps out of his chair, his glasses remaining centred on his face as his back is shown to his guests, the guards that stand by on duty now looking at the back of the room in quiet horror. Frozen stiff, Basham remains where he’d begun the ordeal standing as Gamble approaches him, hands swinging only the slightest amount by each side with the calmest demeanour he’d ever worn. The distance between them now separated only by a few centimetres, the island’s unassuming and mostly-unknown leader stands at attention, looking into his subordinate’s face with a visible disgust in his eyes, the rest of his expression unchanged from what it had been. “GET OUT!” Gamble barks like a rabid dog, breaking his character and watching the muscles in Basham’s neck twitch as the man falls over himself, stumbling backward and colliding with the wall he wastes no time in bouncing off of. Still echoing across the office’s walls, the harrowing yelp his superior voiced leads the dismissed guard to sprint past the negotiating table and run through the door the two remaining guards open for him, allowing him to dash however far his legs can carry him. Holding his look of contempt at the wall, Gamble’s hands slip into the sides of his jacket to rearrange it, adjusting the way it sits on his shoulders before returning the cold, callous and impersonal expression of decency upon his remorseless and unflatteringly bitter face. His shirt one that had been shed of the tie that now sits folded atop the table, the leader’s fingers politely return the top-most button to the opening it was intended to sit within before rejoining the conversation. “Apologies for the unprofessional attitude of my subordinates” Gamble remarks, spinning around gracefully whilst his guests watch on, his respectful walk back to the seat preceding his delicate reseating within it. “Do you think it matters to me?” Charlotte inquires, allowed to speak uninterrupted by the man who returns the favour, choosing not to answer the question until the lady has been afforded the chance to reply. “No, of course not” Gamble answers honestly, quickly jolting his wrists as if to release the tension that had been building within them, “you are a woman of rather straight-forward motivations and subterranean standards.” Her face holding a scowl, Charlotte keeps her lips closed and allows the man before her to read into her squinted eyes and sturdy upper lip and take it for whatever he will. “You created a rather simple and efficient system of community support when everyone still believed dead people coming back to life was a hoax. It doesn’t take many questions to figure out what you stood to gain from that” Gamble proceeds, his unmoved and content expression fully intact, “the questions should- instead- be how you managed to put a group of delinquents in charge of your second-most important one, aggravate them enough to secede, and then lose to them.” “That’s not a very fair representation of the situation, now is it?” Charlotte responds, her hands so similarly stoic and unwavering to her foe’s own that the plastic cup of water sitting beside her remains steady, the surface of its contents not moving even the slightest bit. “Quite the contrary. We’re here- not as the New World Order- but as Nova Scotia because you had to settle for a backup plan” Gamble corrects, “-a backup plan you needed because, again- you lost.” “I think we both know this ‘backup plan’ I had to settle for is a superior system that takes very delicate hands to keep in order” Charlotte quickly rebukes, not taking kindly to her genius being doubted, “and it’s a ‘backup plan’ that was only possible after society fell.” Turning the corners of his mouth rightside-up to mimic a smile, the breakaway island’s leader stares at the table in front off him amidst a pause, pulling his hands apart in order to use his left to remove the eyeglasses. “Indeed, it takes very delicate hands to keep this system in order” Gamble responds, lifting his chin back up to keep his eyes in line with the Nova Scotian leader, “-and I do not trust that those delicate hands belong to you.” Shaking her head once, chin moving to her right before straightening back out, Charlotte shrugs her shoulders and wears her smirk well, “I don’t see how you have any other choice than to play ball and hope that I prove you wrong.” Holding steady for a moment, his expression not wavering in the slightest, Gamble stares blankly at the woman across from him with his half-hearted, almost impossibly-inhuman smile intact, yet to react in any way. The seconds that pass almost seem like the time needed for a machine to process instructions it was given, Charlotte watches her political rival deepen his smile and unfold his hands once more, reaching for a paper off the stack of those he’d signed prior to her arrival. Passing the briefest glance at the sheet, the Nova Scotian leader pays attention only to the boldly printed document on the paper’s front, aware of what the writing is meant to signify. “Grant Prince Edward Island our independence from Nova Scotia, or I will march troops across that bridge and open fire on your residents” Gamble warns, his words instinctively pulling the eyes of his enemy back toward him, the document he’d signed incapable of retaining her sight. Her eyes narrowed in a way that speaks less of confusion and more of vigour, Charlotte eyes the opposing leader whilst her shadow remains seated confidently, intrigued to see how her superior will match the threat posed. “You’d be sending your island- and all those that support independence- to death” the Nova Scotian leader retorts, a remark that fails to change even the slightest blemish of her nemesis’ visage, “the second we advanced into your territory, you’d cease to exist.” “You say that as if the outcome of such a war going in your favour was a guarantee” Gamble quips back, not failing in upholding the rigid and unphased demeanour he presents, “as I believe I’ve proven in my remembrance of the old New World Order- that guarantee is no such thing.” “This is a very different world” Charlotte responds, the poise in her face speaking to the pause she undertakes, chin drifting toward her right as a malicious smile consumes her face, “-and I’m a very different person now.” “Maybe so. But I don’t believe you have the kind of manpower or firepower required to rid of me as quickly as you think” Gamble rebukes, his voice slightly raspy in tone, though his calm portrayal is strikingly discomforting enough to make up for what it lacks in power. “When you take into account that I control the ports you dock your warships in, and that your only control over us is one bridge-” he continues, the weight in his statements not failing to find his foe, “-you’re a tad limited.” Before she has the opportunity to reply, Charlotte watches her political disputant uncouple his hands once more and lay one palm at the top of the sheet he’d presented her with. “I’ve played nice for long enough, and I am well and truly in position to back up my warnings. I’m offering you a way to end this without bloodshed” Gamble clarifies, prompting the woman to look back toward the document laid in front of her, “You will lose this island. Whether that’s by choice or by force- is up to you.” With her hands coupled, Charlotte’s eyes lift back toward her adversary and present a hatred that she’d not shied away from presenting before. Remaining kept to herself, Courtney keeps her eyes glued toward the breakaway-hopeful island’s leader whilst the Nova Scotian head of state turns her eyes toward the paper before her. “None of us are leaving until this decision is made” Gamble doubles down, his words failing to prompt his foe’s eyes to take away from the contract. | Hearing the welcoming bell just over the door she steps through, Katie enters a coffee shop filled with residents of the town she’s desperately hoping to eventually feel comfortable enough in to settle down. Her hair beginning to grow out beyond what she’s used to, the brown locks flow over her white t-shirt covered shoulders whilst the temperature outside begins to heighten, their countdown to noon falling just under an hour. “You don’t leave the house very often, do you?” Harvey inquires, seated nearest the window beside the door his acquaintance enters through, a foam cup of coffee held in his hand. “You look at this place like it’s a whole new world” the man proceeds, watching the younger woman spin around with surprise to hear his voice, the tone it takes more than enough to convince her that the words were intended for her ears, “the longer you do that, the tougher it’ll be to assimilate.” With his back pressing into the closest table to the storefront window, Harvey watches his colleague take a seat opposite him whilst he sips at his beverage, aware of her disinterest for the call he’s made. “Did Gamble tell you why you’re here?” he inquires, watching the woman’s confused expression turn to face him, able to read into it for the answer he’s looking for, “it’s good to know I’m starting from scratch then. It’ll give me a chance to clear all of my bases.” “I’m going to assume you’re not sending me off on some mission since you told me not to bring my rifle” Katie begins, speaking before who she’s a guest of can have the chance to speak. “What are you on about?” Harvey retorts, pulling his head back out of slight amusement, “I told you not to bring a rifle so the people in this shop wouldn’t duck and cover at the sight of a hermit leaving the cave with a gun in tow.” “So I am going off on some mission?” Katie contends, watching the man’s face fall into his hands, unable to see the rolling of his eyes concealed behind his palms. “If you’d just shut up for two minutes, we’d get through this a lot faster” Harvey retorts, ceasing his brief exhaustion at the persistent need for clarification, the woman’s dissatisfied look speaking all that’s needed. “First things first. Everything that I tell you- here and now or at some point in the future- is strictly confidential” Harvey clarifies, watching the displeased expression on the younger woman’s face turn to concern, the secretive approach immediately putting her off. “When you handle business for Gamble, you’re practically attempting to make peace with a ticking time bomb” he proceeds, illustrating his points as best as he can, “play nice and time will just keep getting added.” “And step out of line equals boom, right?” Katie inquires, the quick nod of approval that she’s responded to allowing the man to move on ahead of schedule. “Sometimes, he’ll be in a good mood and tolerate a question or two. He might be a ticking time bomb, but he’s an understanding one” Harvey explains, speaking of the man as if he’s a fine line in need of sticking to, “as long as the new recruit isn’t incompetent, he’ll tolerate the learning process.” “Doesn’t that just mean the ‘don’t tread on me’ display he presents isn’t natural?” Katie responds, a question that her contemporary doesn’t immediately take disinterest in out of its intrigue. “Gamble’s a black dude that needs glasses, doesn’t have a heavy voice, and stands just under six feet tall... He knows this” Harvey retorts, breaking the man down in simple terms, “when he gets animated- that’s very bad. There’s a reason he is as calm and composed as he shows himself to be.” “Then why do people act as if he’s this menacing giant?” Katie questions, the schtick not fully connecting with her, “if they all know it’s an act he uses to look intimidating, why do they fall for it?” Though he understands the question, Harvey’s eyes pull to the distant corner of the shop they occupy, a frown carried in the corner of his face as he places his styrofoam coffee cup on the table, using his free hand to roll the sleeve of his opposite arm up. “You see this?” the man wonders aloud, showing the front of his forearm to the woman and immediately hearing her pull a deep breath in through her teeth, wincing at the sight she finds. “Do you know what I did to get this?” Harvey questions aloud, allowing her the opportunity to answer with what is to blame for what appears to be a pound of flesh burned beyond the ability to heal worn just below the man’s wrist, “I dropped a cigarette on the carpet of his office.” The unlikely answer that she’s afforded being the only thing impactful enough to draw her eyes away from the horrific scar, Katie looks at her colleague as he rolls his sleeve back down, buttoning the dress shirt he wears in spite of the horrendously hot day. “Gamble may not be as composed as he appears, and that calm face might be a front to keep people in line, but make no mistake about this-” Harvey confesses, lowering his voice slightly, “-he’s every bit as dangerous as advertised.” Her mouth agape, Katie struggles to wrap her mind around the conversation being had before, allowing the man to speak amidst her silence for as long as she can bear to hear. “I say this strictly from a professional standpoint- you are very pretty” Harvey explains, trying his best to entice the woman’s mind to refocus on their discussion, “so the best piece of advice I can give is to do everything you can to avoid getting on Gamble’s bad side. If you do- he’s going to change that.” “I’m so sorry” Katie responds from a place of genuine empathy, incapable of retaining it at the sight of Harvey’s hand waving dismissively through the air. “Forget about me, I’m here right now- trying to teach you the ropes- to keep you in good spirits around here” the man confesses, reclaiming possession of his drink as the cafe continues to bustle with new patrons, “going forward, Gamble and his inner circle have decided that you and I will be partners going forward.” “Why? What are you worth to them?” Katie quickly inquires, a squint in her eyes taken as the man across from her wears a half-hearted, sarcastic frown. “I’m worth no more than any runner they can replace me with. I, just like you, and just like everyone else, have a shelf life. My use to them expires when I can no longer do the jobs they ask me to do” Harvey explains, trying to speak as clearly as he can, “when we can’t anymore, we just get thrown back out into society like everyone else.” “Why wouldn’t you want that? Wouldn’t being a regular citizen prevent us from having to walk this fine line with Gamble?” Katie wonders aloud, continuing to speak as the man across from her shakes his head, “I know we’d have to get regular jobs, but wouldn’t that be worth it?” Ceasing his display of vehement refusal, Harvey lifts his drink back to his lips and lets the air quiet again, wanting to let the pause ensue to offer the young woman time to expend her energy speaking. “Regular people don’t get classified intel. Being just like anyone else- unspecial and unimportant to the administration- isn’t what anyone should want-” Harvey replies, a sudden thought dawning his mind and preventing him from immediately finishing his thought, forcing a pause upon his remark before he finally comes around to concluding it, “-at least, not right now.” As her head juts forward, the hairs on her body begin to stand, seeing an unnerved visage in the man’s face as he speaks the ominous last few words, the strange reaction uncharacteristic for the man she admittedly doesn’t know very well. “What does that mean?” Katie questions aloud, calling into what the man already knew her curiosities to be driven to, his verbiage not uttered without an understanding of that. “It means we’re entering a period of time where it’s going to pay off to be in the know of what’s going on around here. Pay off big time” Harvey replies, his hand held toward the younger woman as a gesture for her to remain restrained as he speaks. “The administration is pushing for more authority- self-governing authority- over Nova Scotia as we speak” the man continues, his words latched onto with every syllable, “if he’s not successful, it could put us in very high demand.” “I’m going to stay quiet and hear you out as long as you answer every question that sits on the back of my mind when it’s all said and done” Katie remarks, pressing her lips shut as a show of good faith. “Fine, anyway- we’ll be busy. And things can get bloody if Gamble doesn’t get his way today. It won’t be immediate, but it will be eventually” Harvey proceeds, carrying on with his thoughts aloud, “now I can’t- and personally don’t want to anyway- tell you the specifics of that.” Rolling her eyes, Katie shakes her head and remains true to her word, presenting her displeasure in the man’s remarks without uttering a word. “Sorry, I just don’t know what I’m getting myself into with you. You could be the biggest pain in my ass or the most dependable person I’ve ever worked with- I don’t know” Harvey confesses, telling the woman like it is before following through, “but take me at my word when I say you’ll want to know that it’ll get bloody before it actually does.” Letting her eyes veer off to the side, Katie sits with her thoughts whilst the man she’s seated with takes another sip with his drink, preparing himself to get down to the basics. “Whenever you have questions, save them for me. Don’t go looking for answers from people you don’t know, and definitely don’t raise them with Gamble” Harvey continues, laying out the ground rules for what is to come, “you don’t want to make friends or enemies with him. Just avoid him whenever you can.” Keeping her eyes placed upon the cafe’s patron, Katie watches her new partner process the lack of a reaction he earns, almost as if he were waiting for a moment to see how she’d respond. “Don’t break rules, don’t commit crimes, don’t give the island- or the people- a bad name. Everyone’s supposed to set a good example, but us especially” Harvey proceeds, “image is just as important as action. It’s why he chose to burn what I could cover up instead of what I couldn’t.” Quickly pulling in a hefty breath before pressing his lips to the lid of his coffee cup, Harvey downs a few large gulps before letting free an utmost-satisfied sigh of refreshment. “If we’re sent on a task, we either better make sure it gets done, or we don’t come back at all. The only reason for failure in Gamble’s eyes is death” he continues, “if you fail and die, he’ll make sure to view your death as being a sacrifice in the name of the greater good. Death is noble- failure is not.” Leaning back in his seat, Harvey reaches his hand into the pocket of his dark suit pants, retrieving a set of three keys on a chain before tossing them to the woman’s side of the table. “Like Gamble probably told you already, no one is to know what we do for a living” the man continues, watching the young woman take ownership over the tools set before her, “the keys are to an office across town. You’ll tell people you work financials for Nova Scotia, and that’s the proof.” Reaching into his opposite pocket, Harvey retrieves a green piece of plastic with lettering scrawled on its front, placing it on the table and covering it with his hand before sliding both toward the table’s other end. “When I pick my hand up, take the card immediately and put it in your pocket. Don’t let anyone see it” he warns, watching the woman ready herself before slipping his hand back, letting her claim it as her own. “The green part of that card is a rubber cover. It’ll stretch far enough for you to pull off and put back on” Harvey proceeds, watching the woman’s eyes lift to meet his own once more. “In Nova Scotia- and on this island by extension- people have one card. It’s their debit card for whatever funds they store in the central bank” he explains, ensuring his voice remains low, “the card is actually a black card underneath the cover. The black card is a card that essentially acts as infinite funds.” Clearing his throat, Harvey reclaims the foam cup and prepares to take another sip, finishing his thought before doing so. “The only people that get it are people that work for the Nova Scotian government. Gamble’s already negotiated himself to be able to hand out his own to whomever he pleases” he proceeds, “they’ll get you whatever you want absolutely free. But people can steal it if you’re not careful, so only take that cover off when no one’s watching, and tell no one you have one.” The rules simple enough to follow as of now, Katie sits back in her seat and presses one foot against the stool built into the table they share, watching her apparent mentor sip from his cup and set it back down. “And one final piece of advice that I can give you- though I can’t tell you why- is to not cross that bridge... ever” Harvey warns, careful not to mince his words, “keep your loved ones and friends from going over. If you’re on the other side when things go south, you won’t want to be.” Letting a deep breath through her nose, Katie lets the man’s entire rundown settle with her as he finally falls silent, nothing further to add than what he’d already offered. Eyes wildly glancing from one side of the table to the other as she repeats the individual lines of dialogue in her head, the younger woman takes her gaze toward the face of the man serving as her informant, lips parting for the first time since swearing her oath to momentary silence. “If Gamble is such an ominous figure, why wouldn’t people want to push him out of power?” Katie wonders aloud, taking a glance around the packed coffee shop under no different rule than those across the bridge from them, “wouldn’t fighting a war over independence be something that everyone here would push him out of power over?” “Oh certainly” Harvey responds, nodding his head as he takes his cup of coffee back into the palm of his hand, an obvious pause separating his initial reply from its conclusion, “it’s just too bad they have no idea he’s in charge of what’s going on here.” Her squint this time one of genuine confusion, Katie tilts her head to one side in an obvious request for clarity, the need to ask what’s meant by such a statement clear in her demeanour alone. “Nova Scotia doesn’t want the people here that are pissed off with them have some revolutionary to follow, so they’ve given Gamble powers no one else has in exchange for him not telling the public he’s in control” Harvey informs, “the people that want to break off have no clue that Gamble’s already running a massive underground operation for just that. To us, Gamble’s the guy we answer to. To everyone else- he’s just a high ranking member of the island-specific navy.” “So most of the island doesn’t even know he exists?” Katie quickly questions back, watching the nod she receives answer the question in place of words. “In the event that things don’t ever go his way when negotiations with Nova Scotia come around, he always has the threat of showing the documents he’d signed into law to prove he’s been in charge the whole time” Harvey continues, trying not to leave anything unsaid, “the second he voices his intentions, he’d have the whole island’s support.” “That’s insane” Katie quickly responds, only to be met with a retort of greater haste. “Of course it is, that’s why Nova Scotia makes it so crucial that he remain anonymous and they take credit for whatever it is that Gamble’s government does” Harvey explains, preparing for another sip of his drink, “and today might be when that all goes to hell. This is the biggest demand Gamble’s ever made of Nova Scotia, and I don’t believe he’s gonna get it for even a second. This might be when it happens.” “Does this mean that you’ll tell me what you had me bring you?” Katie retorts, watching the confused visage her colleague wears respond to her, “that thing I brought you when we first met on the bridge?” Looking toward the ceiling for a moment as he pulls back in his seat and takes another sip of his coffee, Harvey shakes his head in refusal, voicing clarity on the retort. “I know it’s something he’s using for additional leverage against Nova Scotia, that’s it” Harvey retorts, one leg crossing over the other, “that’s all I can tell because that’s all I know for sure.” “Well, what do you think it is?” Katie replies, watching the man look to her out of the side of his eye, the hesitant expression worn on Harvey’s face implying it to be something greatly unfavourable. | “I find it hilarious that you think I’m afraid of spilling blood” Charlotte responds, one hand resting to the side of the paper as the other slowly turns the paper over, allowing her eyes to find the next page, “it wouldn’t look good in the public’s eyes, that’s true. But I’d be forgiven for refusing your demands the second I put you on stage with a noose around your neck.” “I believe I’ve made my opinion on your chances of winning rather clear” Gamble replies, his hands remaining coupled together, his face relaxed and unchanged as if artificially installed, “but I don’t quite understand why you haven’t already accepted this as an inevitability yet.” “This as in the bloodshed or this idiotic request?” Charlotte wonders, looking into the eyes of the man across from him as his unraised tone of voice utters his response. “Every year we’ve done this has resulted in a greater emancipation of the Charlottetown city state than the last” Gamble responds, a gentle shake of his head pre-empting his conclusion, “the island is in a place where it can sustain itself without Nova Scotian assistance, and I’d prefer that we just got this over with.” “P.E.I can sustain itself?” Charlotte retorts, inquisitive of the man’s claims and doubtful of their validity, “why exactly do you figure that?” As if programmed to manoeuvre himself to the side amongst the quandary’s conclusion, Gamble swiftly pulls his hands apart and guides his left to a folder resting off to the side, off a few centimetres from the stack of documents he’d been signing. “We’ve converted sixty percent of the homes on the island to renewable energy, have put sanctions on civilians travelling by car, made investments into the bus system, and have established handshake agreements with small communities outside of Nova Scotia” Gamble explains, setting a folder of papers with this proof before his adversary, “the agreement will allow us safe travel passages to export our goods and take in what we cannot grow at an adequate rate.” “And yet a little over sixty percent of the population that would back you in a revolution live on Nova Scotian soil” Charlotte replies, the latter half of her retort spoken with a slight preoccupation, “if you’re waging war against my troops, it’s almost half of your people- which my residents outnumber by a ratio of two-to-one- left out in the cold. I guess that’s what happens when you’re so self-sufficient that you raise the rent to unobtainable prices.” “Drastic measures needed to be taken in the short term in order to certify the long-term viability of Prince Edward Island as its own” the man defends himself, “I do find it humorous to think that you’d view the Quebecois in Nova Scotia as being civilians caught in the crossfire as opposed to what they’d actually be.” “Oh yeah? What would that be?” Charlotte responds, eyes glued back upon the papers sat before her as she reads further into the page she’d flipped to, only looking up after spending a few seconds reading to absolute silence. With an eyebrow raised, the Nova Scotian autocrat looks to the man intent on breaking free from her rule with a half-smirk, one that begins to lower as gradually and subtly as the guise that her nemesis portrays. Unfolding his hands as his semi-lively eyes grow cold and his forced smirk drops into a bitter frown, Gamble’s tone of voice finally distances itself from the affable reflection he’d spent the day presenting. Watching from the comfort of both her seat and silence, Courtney lets the man’s descent into a prolonged, intentionally-discomforting stare proceed just as the man’s body begins casually moving inward, his chest beginning to press into the table’s edge. Letting his lips part with a devious, malicious, and quietly-vicious gaze, Gamble maintains every last ounce of eye contact he can hold with the woman across from him, not looking for her demeanour to change, but wanting himself to be understood beyond reasonable doubt. “They are a cancer” the man replies, his striking peer into the pupils within the enemy’s head not wavering even the smallest amount, “and I have run them into your community to grow that cancer within you.” Presenting herself as stoic, Charlotte’s puckered lips and unmoving face refuses to play into the man’s hair-raising visage, not allowing the man to find even the tiniest fragment of fear within her. Though she feels it come on, the all-powerful compound leader uses the twitch in her eye to an advantage, using it to prompt a one-eyed squint that she holds at her political rival, playing with the balance of fire and peace as the offer of war looms beyond the horizon. “What makes you hate me so damn much?” she finally wonders aloud, watching the man’s visibly displeased and unnerving visage remain as he pulls back, hands folding atop the table just as before, though without the approachable- though robotic- demeanour to boot. “You may lead a Quebecois-heavy population from the shadows, but you’re not Quebecois” Charlotte continues, refusing to appear any differently than a genuinely inquisitive leader. “I’ve never taken my transgressions out on you- or the Quebecois. I simply knew the two sides- us and them- couldn’t co-exist any longer than they already had” she proceeds, granted the room to speak as her adversary awaits his turn to reply with patience and grace, “greater self-autonomy? I can understand why you’d want that. But outright independence? I just can’t see why that’s such a necessity that you’re willing to put your life- and all of theirs- on the line for that.” “Nova Scotia is- for all of its downsides- a successful integration of what society used to be with changes adapted to reflect the new climate that we live in” Gamble responds, carrying the same tone of voice he’d used apart from the brief, purposefully-striking on he’d taken seconds earlier. “However, it is those same downsides that lead me to refuse belief that Nova Scotia- as is- is made to last longer than a handful of years” he continues, speaking with the eloquence he’d talked his way to the pinnacle of the island’s hierarchy behind, “and when the day comes- the inevitable day that I suspect is soon to arise- I will not allow Nova Scotia to take Prince Edward Island down with it.” “Alright, I’ll continue to play along then. What gives you this impression that Nova Scotia isn’t going to stick around for much longer?” Charlotte quickly retorts, “after all, if I’m doing something wrong that jeopardises the life that this community promises- it’s my job to change that.” Finally presenting the briefest look at what lies behind the veil of his presentation, Gamble’s eyes fall toward his coupled hands as his smirk widens, genuine humour taken from the woman’s claim. Though he remains vehement in his distant and friendly-appearing guise, the man’s hands pull away once more to remove the glasses from his face, his shoulders hopping almost unnoticeably as his thumb wipes the corner of his eye. “Mrs. Walters, I must admit that I admire your stubborn refusal to let a burning fire consume everything in the home you build” the man quips, soon returning his eyewear to his face as his initial posture is retaken, “whether it be something as important as a family heirloom or as small as a pieces of garbage, you’re the kind of person that just needs something to save... Just so you don’t look at the fire as having taken everything.” “You’re right, I am. I’m sorry that you don’t have the ability to take a walk in my shoes, but let me try to explain it in a way that you can understand” Charlotte responds, quick to defend herself whilst her contemporary sits with his thoughts. “What you see as a community on the verge of tearing apart is just that- a place you don’t believe is meant to survive” she proceeds, leaning further into the table to match the man’s earlier display, “but I see it entirely differently.” “And in what way is that?” Gamble interjects, finally beginning to show the signs of displeasure with how long the unavoidable negotiation is taking. “As something that no one else- not in the whole, wide world- was capable of doing” Charlotte answers, chirping back with the same haste as the man’s interruption had been delivered with, “when everything else was falling- this place stayed standing.” “And I credit you immensely for what you-” Gamble begins to respond, his calm voice overtaken by the declarative shout that Charlotte cuts him off with. “YOU WILL TALK WHEN TOLD TO!” With parted lips, the island’s visibly irritated leader falls silent, looking the woman he’s prepared to go to war with straight in the eyes, seeing the lock of hair that falls over the face leaning toward one side, her scowl one of intense anger he cannot bring himself to match. Pressing his lips together once more, Gamble’s hands adjust the cuffs on his dress shirt as his upright posture deepens, the man’s patience forced to override his aggravation as he waits for her conclusion. Long and heavy breaths leaving through her nose, Charlotte’s intense and unbroken stare at the man’s eyes matches the same vigour he knows him to hide beyond the fragile exterior of a welcoming grin and composed coupled hands. Her tongue clicking as her mouth opens once more, the Nova Scotian leader is watched closely by the room’s other inhabitants, her preparation one that can’t be viewed without intrigue. “The president, your prime minister, the Queen, the CIA, the RCMP, MI6, the Kremlin, the Chinese government, the Pentagon, the whole goddamn world couldn’t keep the ship afloat!” Charlotte screams aloud, gradually working her way back to the dominant, unapologetic pitch it’s taken on, “it happened everywhere. The U.S, Canada, Russia, China, Japan, Mexico, Britain, fucking Guam- it happened everywhere but here. And no one could stop it but me.” Left hand folding over his left, Gamble lets his eyes fasten themselves to the stare of his legal superior, obvious disdain for the way in which she speaks of him not hidden for a moment. “I give you the credit owed to you for accomplishing what you have over the last three years and some change. It takes real talent to demand a long leash and actually do well with the room you are given” Charlotte proclaims, “but if you go to war with me- I’ll tear you apart eyebrow to nutsack.” Jutting his chin forward as his tongue curls upon itself and lets its tip sink into the soft inner gum beneath, Gamble continues to wait for his opportunity to speak, able to contain himself, though with less ease than he had before. “I’m really glad you said what you did a few minutes ago- the metaphor about the burning house” Charlotte clarifies, a grin emanating in the right corner of her mouth, “because I didn’t just save a piece of trash... I put the whole motherfucking fire out.” Though his expression remains composed, the threads that contain it appear to pop in small places, each lace sewn to keep Gamble’s metaphorical mask on being pried from their places as his foe leans in further. “And I’m going to put this fire out too. You’ve already said that these meetings are building up to it, so clearly this demand is just getting it over with” Charlotte proceeds, “which means you’ve still got time to waste, and I have time to work with.” The slight traces of anger carried over in his visage mostly falling aside in favour of an eye roll that the Nova Scotian autocrat dismisses, paying as little mind to it as she pays to his offer. “So I’m going to take every last minute of that time and save what no one else could even hold onto” Charlotte continues, taking her right hand and pressing its index finger against the table’s top, “I’m not going to be who chooses war or peace. You made the demand, so I’m gonna make you choose.” “I’ve already given you my decision” Gamble quickly interjects, aware that his opportunity to speak was not provided and caring less for it than his adversary does for his offer of independence. “I don’t give a flippy-dippy fuck about your offer, I give a damn about mine” Charlotte responds, her shoulders rising as her elbows press into the table, eyes not leaving the other man’s as her head pulls downward with vindictive intent. “You can’t fix what tears this community apart. As much as you may think you’re able to conquer the world, you cannot conquer the will of the people’s call for sovereignty” Gamble retorts, a declaration the woman refuses to adhere to. “Give me one year and I can” Charlotte responds, watching the disheartened shake of her rival’s head accompany his squinting eyes, “humanity endured the end of times. No matter what it is that you think can drive us apart... We’ve always endured worse.” “People naturally pull apart. If you don’t face them with the same adversity that brought them together, they will never bond once more” Gamble rebukes again, the slow shake in his head continuing to present the woman with his doubts, “you cannot create another end of times to stick them back into one again, Mrs. Walters.” “And yet... I will” Charlotte argues back, her voice as subdued and calm as that of her combatant, “I sustained society when it collapsed, and I’ll sustain unity before it follows suit. Give me a year, and that is what you’re going to get.” “Giving you a year- as I stated earlier- will do nothing but prolong the-” Gamble begins to reply, his retort not quick enough to avoid being spoken over. “Then let’s prolong the goddamn inevitable, you impatient fuck!” Charlotte chirps back, her insult this time only earning yet another dissatisfied expression, almost as if he doesn’t take her remarks as seriously as they’re intended to be received, “the only reason to think you’d have anything to lose would be because you know I will.” “Why should I even begin to consider wasting another year of my time to afford you this pointless opportunity at inevitable failure?” Gamble replies, accepting the woman’s refusal to back down and- instead- choosing to use her proposition as a negotiating tactic. “Because I know about your advancement down the St. Lawrence” Charlotte quickly replies, the haste in which her opponent closes his lips making his internal feelings on the subject known resoundingly clear. “We weren’t going to say anything about it, but that was before we knew about what you were going to propose” she continues, the unchanged display on her paramotorist subordinate’s face displaying a show of unity with her Nova Scotian superior. “That goes entirely against the agreement we made when you were installed as de facto head of state on this island three and a half years ago. I’ve had the authority to nullify that agreement for weeks, but I didn’t use it” Charlotte responds, the silence she’s met with only furthering the tension that builds as the air becomes quiet, left unencumbered by words or sounds, and instead occupied with the particles of air both parties stare at each other through. “That, and because I have one other card to play” Charlotte replies, placing her palm against the corner of the papers that sit in front of her, taking the documents into her possession and holding them up for the man to see, “give me that year, and if I can’t come through on my word... You’ll have your independence.” The discontent in his face swiftly changing to an easily-unnoticeable intrigue, displayed through only the mere inch-high lift of his eyebrows, Gamble stares at the papers for a moment before looking back to the Nova Scotian leadership, waiting for her to continue. “You’ll remain anonymously in charge of this island- running acts through me for approval- to avoid the contamination of public perception” Charlotte explains, “we’ll meet again one week after a year from now.” “Why a full seven days after?” Gamble inquires, too invested in the proposal he’s being made to allow his domineering front to persist. “Because one year from now, our combined governments will hold a mandatory approval poll that we’ll announce three days in advance” Charlotte replies, setting the benchmark for her to clear, “I’ll have to clear two metrics- sixty percent approval from the English voters, and eighty percent approval from the Quebecois voters- or else I’ll sign these forms.” “Why should I believe you’ll honour your agreement?” Gamble inquires, again receiving his answer without having to wait more than two seconds. “Because I’m willing to look the other way for the best interest of my community since you didn’t honour yours” Charlotte replies, tossing the stack of documents across the table and onto her adversary’s folded hands, “and because the alternative is refusing. In that case, I’ll have your entire community slaughtered by nightfall.” The squint in his eyes only deepening, Gamble lifts his pupils from the papers he’d watched dance across the obstructions in their path before falling centimetres away from his chest. “You said you were as uninterested in bloodshed as I was. If that’s true, this is the only chance you’re going to get that independence without it” Charlotte concludes, staring daggers through the man’s face as she awaits his reply. Standing guard by each side of the door, Gamble’s armed security stare at the man’s face with their hands coupled at their laps, their superior’s hands taking to the papers left for him to reclaim before his eyes re-read the bold lettering atop the first page. From the comfort of her seat, Courtney watches Nova Scotia’s adversary pull his head to the side to pop the joints in his neck before pushing his seat out, a nod toward one of the armed men that remain in the room given. Climbing to his feet, Gamble holds the independence letters in his hands whilst the remainder of his papers are carried in the arms of his subordinates, his feet carrying him around the table before stopping the moment he makes it to his foe’s side of the table. “I will see you again on the first of July, two thousand twenty-three” the man remarks, passing by them as the remaining guard holds the door open, granting the man access to the corridor he enters to leave the discussion behind. Following their superior, the guards exit the room and close the door behind themselves, leaving the Nova Scotian elite seated alone in the presence of Prince Edward Island’s hospitality. Without a word, Courtney turns her head to face the woman she’s joined for the meeting, watching her eyes stare forward at the wall opposite them, and intense glare provided as if the de facto authoritarian of the breakaway island were still seated in his chair. “What are you thinking, Charlotte?” the paramotorist wonders aloud, the woman’s gaze never breaking from across the room, her jaw protruding outward as her mouth opens the slightest bit. Pausing as her tongue presses against the back of her two front teeth, Charlotte pulls in a deep breath and thrusts it out through her nostrils, trying to calm herself to a more composed state of mind in spite of the anger-infused tension that fills her body with an unbridled and unrequited spite. With her stare unmoved, Charlotte fixates on the back wall, the disheartened shake of her head gradually building quicker before finally stopping at the release of a sigh and the voicing of a reply, “that I’ve got another fire to put out.” == Rise == |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. Archives
June 2025
Categories |
RSS Feed