Awake
"Bernie?" Coleson's voice was soft.
Bernie groaned. Her skin stung in tender places and her bones seemed to creak like old wood. Sleep was a warm blanket ripped away unexpectedly. She felt as if she'd been beaten half to death. But she opened her eyes, and found Coleson sitting across from her, not unlike the night she first met him. But this wasn't a rusty, filthy mattress, with springs that creaked and moaned. This was stuffed with something, and it was soft, and it sculpted itself to her body.
"I'm alive," She assured him, and sat up. This wasn't a tent. The walls were stone. It was dark in here, save for two small windows on either side of the room. "Where am I? How did…"
"I found the Church of Moss, and brought them back to you. You nearly died…" He was silent, staring at the floor for minute before saying, "It was a mistake stopping you cold. We should have weened you off the drugs over time. And to march you out into the swamp like that… Chief Harlstone was right. I was an idiot."
"I'm not disputing that," Bernie said with a half-smile. Coleson looked up. "But I'm not dead."
"You're not wholly alive either. You've been in and out of it for days. Harlstone administered some kind of jet to you a few days ago, but the shock to your body was… Intense. How long had you been taking it before?"
Bernie sat back again, feeling her own walls creep up slowly. The details lay in her small silence, before she spoke, "A few years, maybe. With some mentats and Phsyco in between. Time flies under the influence."
"That's a long time."
"I've been a long time gone," Bernie admitted, eager to get away from this topic. "So are we there? The Drowned City?"
Coleson was already shaking his head, "A few miles yet. This is as close as the Church dares go."
Bernie paused, "Why?"
Coleson frowned, "What do you mean?"
"Why can't we get closer to the city?"
Coleson blinked, "No, I suppose you wouldn't know. Ghouls, mutants, other kinds of people affected by the war… It's dangerous for us in the city."
"Dangerous? Like how? Like you're attacked?"
Coleson winced, "Not quite."
A ghoul suddenly strode into the room, taller that most and wearing a scarf made of tree moss around his neck, armor made of some kind of dark wood over his chest and shoulders. Bernie remembered the men from her dreams, the trees that leaned in toward her. "He means to say that we redactives are enslaved there. Trafficking of our peoples has been a staple of the city's economy for decades now, since the last of the great drug wars. Coleson, sit."
Coleson had risen when this ghoul entered the room, and now sat again, "Bernie, this is Chief Harlstone. He's in charge of the camp here."
"Your boss?"
"Yes, I'm a member of his tribe. This is my brotherhood."
Bernie nodded, and turned back to Harlstone, " 'Redactives'?"
"We prefer the term 'affected'. Whether by radiation or simple human tinkering, those not wholly human. Made different somehow. In our case, it's our appearance, and strength," Harstone sat beside Coleson. "This drug is an example."
Bernie didn't understand at first, "You're talking about the drug I took? The super-drug?"
Harstone said grimly, "Coleson has been telling me about your run-in with the raider, and what happened at the camp."
"I don't know what more there is to tell," Bernie admitted. "I'm sure he told you about my supplier?"
"He did. Though I find it improbable to believe, I have to trust Coleson. Unless you led him to another supplier? To protect your original source?"
The accusation took Bernie by surprise. The ghouls in the swamp hardly ever questioned her. She supposed they figured she lied anyway. But to be directly accused stung anyway, "No. I have no other supplier."
Chief Harlstone grunted.
"I'm telling the truth," Bernie crossed her arms over her chest defensively.
"Perhaps," Harlstone sat back. "Unfortunately there's no way to know for sure. But you're welcome to go when you feel better. The Church has done all it can for you."
"Wait," Coleson piped up, his raspy voice raising an octave, "You're just letting her go? What about…" He glanced nervously at Bernie, "All the other stuff I told you about?"
"We have our own detectives working on it. Yourself included. Now that our southern camp has been destroyed, we must rebuild. You are needed there, Coleson. Let the addict figure out her own future." And with that, Harlstone left as suddenly as he appeared, the door thumping behind him.
"What a jerk," Bernie growled.
Coleson shook his head, "Just rebuild? Just like that? After all those people were killed?"
It did seem very sudden. "Do they even know who did it?" Bernie asked.
Coleson was silent. His molted hands worked hat his knees, eyebrows knit in concentration.
"Coleson?"
"It was the Massas. At least that much we know. But there's very little way to make a difference there."
"The Massas? What are those?"
Coleson looked at her sharply, "Where did you come from, Bernie?" He was silent, waiting for her to say something. Bernie didn't answer, drowning out the memories the dreams had brought back. "You don't know about the redactives, you don't know about the drug monarchy that established them, do you know anything about the Drowned City?"
"No," Bernie said simply. She shuttered her face against his other questions, to show she wouldn't crack.
Coleson sighed, "I guess there's no harm in explaining things."
