3. Ghost
Author's note: Takes place post-film. No Nux, sorry
Back at the Citadel things are still chaotic. No one knows quite what to do so The Toast takes charge and starts organizing people into groups, giving them tasks to do. Furiosa is still recovering, but she's cleaned herself up and now sits on Immortan's throne to keep a sense of fear in the unrulier underlings. Corpus has stayed on for his own protection and is acting as advisor. It would be fine if he wasn't such an insufferable smeg.
Capable finds herself down in the catacombs, a place she's never been, walking on the catwalks above the arena where the pups were trained. She watches a small pup in the back struggle with a nitrous oxide tank bigger than he is. Her eyes itch and sting; she sees a sickly boy strapped to a blood bag and she runs out of the caves as fast as she can. Once she gets to the Vault, she furiously wipes at her eyes.
"Picking out a new boy, hmm?" The Dag singsongs and Capable wants to smash her face into the stone wall. But she doesn't. She won't. The others have not stopped teasing her since they returned. They think she is being silly, needlessly grieving a death that was most honorable and justified. It is what he wanted, they say. But how could they know?
"I don't want a new boy." She angrily sits down on one of the couches. She hates it here. She sees Nux out of the corner of her eye, pointing at her like she's supposed to do something. What was she supposed to do? What did Nux want in his last moments?
"Get across. Once you're safe I'll jam the throttle and follow you." He's haunting her like a ghost from the Old World. Nagging at her because she couldn't understand his last words and gesture.
"They aren't quite the same, are they? Too busy trying to kill themselves." The Dag drops onto the couch next to her and drapes herself against Capable's side. "I'm sorry you're sad."
"What are we supposed to do now? Just sit here and… and what?" Capable runs her fingers through her bright hair. She wants to take a knife and chop it all off. She wants a change; a big drastic change to make things feel not so awful and stagnant. "Escaping was supposed to make things different, but we are back where we started!"
"We're in the same place, but things are different. They will be different." Dag gently grabs pieces of red hair and starts braiding them back and away from Capable's face.
"Immortan doesn't own us anymore but… what do we do? I don't even… I don't know. What does Furiosa expect from us?" She lets out a frustrated sigh and lets Dag have complete control of her head.
"I don't expect anything. What do you want to do?" Furiosa stands in the doorway, clean and dressed in a pair of overalls.
"I don't know! I was just a child when I was taken and… there was only here." She throws her hands up to gesture to the entire room. She tries not to look at the place where Immortan's bed was. They burned it when they returned. None of them could stand looking at it.
"You can do anything you want now but all you're doing is complaining." The driver turned leader sits down on the table nearest them. She looks tired, but hopeful. Toast has been acting as Furiosa's assistant, dispensing information and gossip, making sure there are no surprises for their new leader is not blindsided. Cheedo has been helping the mothers and trying to find a good way for them to be useful but not abused. The Dag has been in charge of the seeds from the Many Mothers and oversees the crops, experimenting with them to yield more. It is not an easy transition to make for any of them.
"I'm not," Capable weakly protests. The Dag pulls her hair. "Ow! Fine. I am."
"If you want something to do, I need someone to take charge of the War Boys and Repair Boys. Make sure they know how things work now. The War Boy's leader is called Crax and the Repair Boy's leader is Socket." She frowns. Of course she is the one elected to act as go-between for the Boys. She was closest to Nux and he had been both so it does make sense on some level, but Nux was so much more than one of the crazed painted Boys that worshiped a cruel master. She does not believe that there are any others like him. There can't be. He was unique and special in the world and now he is gone.
Furiosa is right though, so she borrows some overalls and a longsleeved shirt and boots and once again treks down to the catacombs to look for the Head Boys. She hopes with the clothes she seems less like some old world fae goddess and more like an Imperator or other low-level commander. Respectable and strong. She does not feel strong. She has never ventured this far down and the stairs and ladders seem endless.
She is lost. Physically this time. And she can't remember which way is what anymore. So she pulls aside the nearest painted figure by the arm. Nux touched Furiosa and Max, pulled them around. He had been careful of her though, but she is stronger than she expected. "Where can I find Crax?" She draws herself up to her fullest height and stares this Boy right in the eyes. He is taller than her by a head but he shrinks back at her tone. She made herself his boss already.
He nods and turns, leading her down several dark tunnels. She watches his scarred back, the way he moves. He is scrawny, the way Nux was, but his spine is curved into an S-shape and he walks with a heavy limp. "What's your name?"
He slows his pace, but does not stop. "Bin."
"I'm Capable."
He does stop this time and turns to look down at her. "Capable of what?"
She forced a mad grin at the familiar question. "Anything. Now I need to see Crax and Socket. On Furiosa's orders."
He picks up the pace, turning away from her as they silently make their passage. She has to be strong here. She cannot collapse into a grieving little creature now. The Boys respect a pecking order and she needs to be the top bird here.
Crax is not what she expects; he seems to be barely older than she is. Though it does make sense. He was the most senior of the Boys left behind. The War Boys that chased after the war rig did not come back. Crax has a lump on his neck and a wicked looking scar along his chest. He is even taller than Bin, with impossibly long arms and legs. "Who're you?"
"Capable. I am your new boss on orders of Furiosa. What is your status?" She tries her best to sound in control and impatient at the same time, looking up at the pale giant.
"We've lost two-thirds of our forces and most of our best cars. We're trying to train up the young pups as fast as we can. There will be retaliation from the Bikers. Immortan's truce with Gastown and the Bullet Farm might not hold now that he's gone." Crux seems uncertain, unsure about his feelings on his former god.
"Train as many as you can. I will speak to Socket about getting more cars. Would your boys be able to go with some salvage crews?" The best resource for new cars is the wreckage of the terrible chase.
Crux grins and nods. "Yes, yes, we can do that. Good training missions. Keep us sharp. Tell me how many crews and I will get you Boys."
She smiles at him. Kindness had worked on Nux, as did giving him a purpose when everything seemed hopeless. Crux babbles about how he will be ready. She listens and nods.
"Is there anything that you need from Furiosa?" She is met by a blank stare. "Furiosa wants a strong warrior class to defend us from our enemies."
He seems to think about it, pacing back and forth with a nervous sort of energy. "Furiosa will let us die for her, yes?"
Capable nods. "Yes. Though she would prefer you all to live."
Crux looks down at her as if she just asked him what guzzoline is. She smiles and puts a hand on his bare shoulder. "At least until the numbers are up, right?"
"Oh. Yes." He nods, understanding. "Yes. We will need a strong force."
One step at a time, she supposes. Maybe the younger ones can be trained to be less suicidal. She makes Crax take her to the main workshop. She can't believe a space like this exists in the Citadel. The area is massive, full of activity of all kinds. Repair Boys scurry and scuttle about trying to piece together anything useable to shore up the numbers in case of an attack.
She finds Socket overseeing several young Boys rebuilding a massive engine. He is the oldest Boy she's ever seen, his shoulders hunched over and his hands gnarled by time. He is called Socket because his left eye is just that. An empty, dark hole. He notices her quickly and waves her over. "What's a Shiny like you doing all the way down here?"
"I'm not Shiny. My name is Capable and on Furiosa's orders, you report to me." She lays down the law like she did with Crux, but Socket isn't so easily fooled.
"I see… I see. She finally found someone who wants to deal with us." He laughs harshly and coughs, spitting on the ground as he does. "Didn't think she'd send one of The Wives though."
"I am not a wife!" Capable stamped her foot and got up in Socket's face. "I am Capable. Capable of Anything. You will respect me or I will have you replaced."
Socket laughed and wheezed and then shuffled to a table, gasping the whole way. He turns a valve and takes a hit off of an ancient oxygen mask. It reminds her of Immortan. She waits for him to finish. One of the young black thumbs jumps down beside her. His eyes are blue and his expression is full of wonder and curiosity. He looks so much like Nux, she imagines this is what he looked like before he became a War Boy.
She stares at the pup so intently, she is almost hit by the wrench socket threw. The pup scurries off, probably to tell tales of the Shiny that came by. She turns back to the old Boy. "Curious pups make good mechanics but they're a distractible lot when their fingers aren't occupied. Now, what is it Furiosia needs from me?"
"We need to go salvage Biker's Pass. How many crews can you put together in a hurry?" She can see the gears working inside Socket's brain. He seems excited now, chattering on about the possibility of rebuilding the fleet anew. He hopes he will get to rebuild the Doof Wagon despite the fact that Coma is dead.
"I can start with my three best teams to go out before dawn. Probably can scramble two more later in the day, depending on what they come back with."
"Good. I want to be on the first salvage crew out there. I will be supervising this effort." Socket nods and doesn't say one word or other about it and she leaves, satisfied with her plan. She will go out to the wreckage herself and see. She will see what it took for freedom, even if most of the Citadel's citizens didn't feel its touch yet.
The Organic Mechanic is on her way back up. He looks her up and down with an appraising smirk. "What brings you all the way down to see me?"
"Do you keep records of the Boys?" She's sure there must be some inventory here. She's seen the cabinets dedicated to tally sheets of working vehicles and ammunition. Surely there must be some record of the most plentiful resource in Immortan's army.
"Yeah, yeah why? Furiosa needs an inventory? I told them we'd need a new inventory." The man rubs his hands off on his filthy overalls and goes over to a rusted cabinet. "Too many lost on that foolish chase. Entire divisions of the fleet gone. Only the young and the sick left."
"Do you keep records on the sickness as well?" She steps up behind him, peering in the cabinet and the bundles of papers.
"Yes. Have to. Need to know who's too sick. Who needs special attention. Where to assign out the blood bags."
She asks for Nux's file and is surprised it is near the top. "I remember this one. Gets a blood bag every so often. Named his lumps. Why you want this file?"
Ignoring the question, she looks over the notes and despairs. She has no idea what it all means. His blood type is here, but the rest doesn't make sense. Words that seem impossibly big tangle in her brain. "How sick was he?"
"Closer to the end than the beginning. Maybe could have gotten another good year out of him. Year and a half if he had the will for it. Though who knows when we can get more blood bags in? Without a good supply we shouldn't waste them on the ones that won't recover."
Won't recover? A year? She checks Nux's age and sure enough, he was just turned seventeen years. "Are they all this sick?"
The man shifts, thinking about the question. It's like he's never been asked before. "Most of them, yeah. Ones that don't start sick end up sick."
"Why?" It's been burning in the back of her brain since Nux first mentioned Larry and Barry.
"Living conditions mostly, I suppose. Lack of food, fresh water, sanitary waste disposal. The clay in the war paint is mildly toxic. Fumes and gas inhalation. The damp gets others. You need a list for Furiosa? I can get you a list. Immortan didn't care much for the whys." The man shrugs and puts a pencil to paper to make her a list. And she tucks it in with Nux's file and leaves.
She knows she should sleep now, but she reads all the difficult words that the Organic Mechanic wrote. She imagines they mean all sorts of things, all of which tell that no matter what, she would have felt this pain no matter what that stupid, silly, wonderful boy did. He would always be her ghost, haunting her with that bright smile and impossibly blue eyes.
