Sephy recited the lines like a laureate. His voiced carried, quiet yet intoned, with inflections pronounced, and intent weaved into every syllable.
"Stocks and stores are all a bore,
The combine's come to harvest.
Become civilian or fight for more,
The combine's here to harvest.
Homes, tomes- now all unknown,
Compounds that were once estates,
Wishful thinking's now just coping,
We'll put our lives on the plate,
Though be it a sound,
a shout,
A cry,
or a whisper made out to draw,
Be it a shot,
In the dark or the light,
To capture what we once saw,
Either or, It's all a bore,
The combine's finished its harvest."
Sasha tightened his bandage. "Sing those in your head."
He sighed. "That's the problem with an apocalypse. You can't be a realist."
Sasha frowned.
"Well, you can be a survivalist, but that's not the same. Being a realist means thinking real thoughts," he tapped his head and smiled, "in here."
"Keep drinking, Sephy. If you start seeing anything like flashing lights, little white snowflakes or swirling colours then keep still and call me unless you want a realist migraine."
Sephy smiled and tilted slowly onto his back and humming the combine rhyme. He looked somewhat comfortable, relaxed and stable. Sasha moved to the door, sliding a nine-millimetre into her belt as she went.
Outside, shadows crept off the bleak coast with the tide. Waves broke uneasily, sporadically, in the dark. Sasha considered the details. She kept in mind the small things that broke on the earth after the Seven-Hour War. Small parts of the world. A damaged old tape; on the surface it functioned, yet presiding through it all was the feeling of unease, given life by the smallest visual oddities and glitches throughout. The feeling of an unwanted houseguest. Sasha kept them in mind because they were important. Nothing would ever fix them. An alien could be shot, but a feeling – a presence of mind – could never be chased away from a place. Nothing would ever be the same.
She lit a cigarette and inhaled greedily. The outpost faced south, towards cliffs that looked faceless in the dark. Below that ran a shoreline of sick-grey sand, separating land from a shapeless sea. It was like spilt ink, or oil. Unnatural. Changed.
Footsteps shuffled towards her. Ronnie came close and sat down.
"Hey sweetie," Sasha said.
Ronnie tipped his machine gun in response.
"See anything?"
"I'd say if I did."
Sasha took another long drag, letting the smoke reach deep into the back of her lungs, holding it, then exhaling through her nose. "So what do you think?" she smiled, "Sephy gives us a fortnight. After that, Overwatch'll get bored of using us as bait and send in a strider."
"He's wrong."
"He is?"
"They wouldn't commit a strider to us. Not even a hunter. They'd send one good team. It's all they need."
"That's one good team we could take with us."
"One good team of thousands."
She shrugged. "Do you want to die here, or in Nova Prospekt?"
"Here, of course."
"Then they could send civil protection for all I care."
Ronnie shifted. The no-light policy was enforced, but it seemed foolish. Something was always watching them regardless of what they did. Under the moon, his lambda Rebel fatigues were layers of soft dark greys and navy blues. The metal of his gun glowed, as did his dark eyes. Two pinpricks of light in an otherwise shadowed mask.
Ronnie said, "The One Free Man killed hundreds, they say."
"Of the old military. How long did they last against the combine?"
"He was a physicist. They expected him to just get lost and die like the rest did."
"Like us?"
"We're lost?"
Sasha shook her head. "No. We know where we are. They," she waved a hand to the darkness, "know where we are."
"We're dead?" Ronnie sighed. "I suppose. Not yet. Soon."
At once mortality pressed on her like the entire night. She consoled in the idea of the Free Man as a form of hope. Or an ultimate weapon. A single device to end it all. "When you find that Physicist, tell him we could use a hand."
"Well, what would we have to lose?" He said. "Night Sasha."
"Night sweetie."
Ronnie disappeared. Sasha flicked the stub of her cigarette into the dark, the night at first enveloping it then consuming it.
Just had this on my PC, figured someone might like it. Hope you enjoyed.