Originally written as the first chapter of Forged. Now a supplementary piece.
Some scenes were reused in Forged, so forgive anything that seems familiar.
"All is not lost, the unconquerable will, and study of revenge, immortal hate, and the courage never to submit or yield."
John Milton, Paradise Lost
Her name was Carmina Rye and she was born on the day the world ended. Not that she realized this, of course, as an infant in arms, cradled safe and close to her mother's chest as the woman ran to their bomb shelter, and screamed curses at God and fate and pleaded to the ether for her husband to return before the fallout reached them. He did, barely, with clothes stained with blood, scent thick with Bliss, and blue eyes haunted.
Carmina wouldn't know that she was born on the day the world ended until she was five years old and she overheard her parents talking about grass and sun and one more year and she forced them through sheer childhood tenacity to finally answer her questions about the door they could not open, and the mysterious unknown that lay beyond it.
That would be a defining memory for her, the first time her parents talked to her about The Deputy, their Rook, who delivered them safely to the doctors after a harrowing car chase and protected them with all his might and would have been her Godfather, were it not for the bombs that stole him away [just like everybody else].
At five years old, Carmina didn't have a world for the uneasy feeling that story gave her. The knowledge that her birthday aligned with the day everything broke, the day people died by the millions, and life on the planet changed beyond all recollection. She didn't have a word for it at five, but she did at fifteen. She had a word and twelve years of birthday memories, and she knew that day was cursed.
You see, the earliest memory Carmina has is that of her mother crying behind a closed bathroom door, while small twists of paper burned down, scattering ashes on the small cupcake her father had made her for her third birthday. She remembers the strain in her father's smile, the unnerving sorrow in his eyes that had nothing to do with memories of the life before the bunker, before Carmina, before now and everything to do with the rush of blood down her mother's leg, and the knowledge that there would be no baby to join them in six months time.
Her birthday was no better at eight, when her parents spent the night screaming at each other. Blaming the other for something Carmina felt deeply, but never fully understood. Or at twelve when her birthday coincided with the news that Mary May had finally succumbed to the cancer that had been dwelling inside her for years. Or at fifteen when the Highwaymen came and stole away both her home and her father.
Her birthday is still a cursed day now, at seventeen, when Carmina steps out of the walls of Prosperity, an assault rifle on her back, and the promise of salvation, a piece of paper burning, folded tight and kept carefully in the pocket of her jeans.
At seventeen, Carmina Rye leaves the safe embrace of Hope County, and goes in search of a savior .
—
The Highwaymen have not made it west of Montana, or well, at least not to the northwest part of the country. Carmina has run into other wanderers, men and women with tanned faces and parched lips, who told her stories over a shared campfire of vast deserts and rock walls that cut so deep into the earth that you can count milenia in the descending striating of rock. They tell her of vicious men clad in black and pink and tell her to stay out of Southern California, to stay out of Arizona and Nevada, and a valley called Death, for no reason than that its name holds true.
Some tell her they've heard of the man named Rush, and his band of militia who roam the west coast by rail and sea, and help communities spring back to their feet. They have heard the tales, some have seen the successes, and Carmina cannot help but finger the worn flier in her pocket and hope.
"Do you think I'll find them? That they'll help?" She asks her fellow wanderers one night, a group she had fallen in with more than a week ago, who were heading, like her, to the coast.
"Anything's possible," Big Steve said, which was both funny and a lie because he was the smallest man, Carmina had ever seen.
The girl smiled and nodded and tucked away his response with all the others she had gotten after explaining the dilemma of Hope County. Like all the others there was a pleasant, yet sour twinge to the consoling words, stained with their lack of care beyond the lives of their own family group.
She couldn't help but wonder if people had always been like that in the face of strangers, or if it was a new habit gained from their new world.
Carmina split from Big Steve's company around the time they found signs for Redding and Interstate 5. She knew, based on the old travel atlas her mom had managed to scrounge up that she needed to take the leftover bones of the highway south, until she hit San Francisco, home base for Rush and his group. A part of her, the foot sore, tired, and homesick part, wished she'd find some of them long before she had to set foot in that distant city.
—
Sequoia Matthews, Carmina thinks, is the prettiest woman she has ever seen. In her mid twenties, the woman couldn't have been more than eight when the bombs dropped. She is exotic in the way that Carmina is exotic, copper colored skin dusted with both scars and freckles, hair dark,long and pin straight under her cowboy hat. Her eyes are honey brown, with thick lashes and —
"It's a really long way to go." Thomas Rush says, interrupting the nature of Carmina's thoughts. Pulling her eyes off of the woman lounging in the hard plastic chair to his right.
"Not to mention dangerous...," Sequoia says, "Honestly, I'm surprised you made it this far west...I've heard there are a lot of roving bands between here and Montana. Not to mention your HIghwayman problem...yikes."
That response made Carmina's gut churn, the thought of Rush's Militia denying her request after five months of hard travel had long weighed heavy on her mind, and had forced her into many sleepless nights. That fear voiced into fact made Carmina vomit up her next words, hurried, desperate.
"Please! We need help, there is so much in Hope County worth saving, So many people worth saving. We have a solid foundation, we just need help getting the rest of the way there!"
Thomas Rush leaned forward, pressing his arms against the top of his tights, his face a gentle condolence. "It's not a no, Carmina, we just have to think things through...If there's a community closer by that needs our help it just makes more sense to go to them first. Travel being what it is…"
"Rush," A different voice interrupts, quiet, yet hard in the way many of the survivors of her parents' age spoke. "I remember Hope County. There is a lot of potential there. Good farmland, fishing, hunting. With the right support, its territory you could turn into a real haven."
Carmina's eyes jerked towards the woman, as her face broke into a hopeful smile. "The farmland is still good. We still have animals too, cows, pigs, horses…"
Rush too looked at the woman, taking in her firm stare and solid conviction at the memory of a place more than seventeen years out of date.
"Okay Sara... Carmina - if you're sure, if you're telling the truth," There he stared at the girl, eyes flicking over the planes of her face, to the swelling hope in her smile and the honesty in her eyes. "Then we'll help."
"I promise." Carmina said, elation running like Bliss in her veins. "It's that and more."
—
The next five days were a blur of activity. Carmina being pulled into meeting after meeting, discussing everything from land quality to the food systems already in place at Prosperity, to Survivor numbers and demographics.
Each meeting was attended by a different specialist. Who would shoot question after question at the young girl, scribbling notes all the while, then disappear to start preparing their own specialized courses of action and gathering the necessary supplies.
She spoke first with Rush who was in charge of the settlements, who joked about an old job in the army as a civil engineer. "I rebuilt towns all through the Middle East,' he grinned, 'it's nice doing it now without the threat of IEDs.'
With Garret Barmes, head of farming and agriculture, who came in with a list of crops he knew used to be able to grow in Montana's climate and asked which still spouted.
After three hours and comparing numerous photos of plant sprouts to her memory, the brown haired man crossed off a few of the more finicky crops and left to track down seeds.
Carmina spoke with Sara - hunting, fishing and wildlife, with Sequoia - security and defenses, Marta - education, Joel - sanitation, the twins Terry and Mike Goodman who were doctors and some of the oldest people Carmina had ever met, "65 and going strong" they joked with a smile.
It was refreshing, the open optimism, and professional demeanor of Rush's Militia. The road to them had been long and hard and full of naysayers, but finally, with success within reach of her finger tips, Carmina burned with satisfaction.
—
The train left a week after Carmina won their help. The long series of boxcars filled to the brim with supplies, Rush's specialists, and their families.
Children ran up and down the narrow rail cars, laughing as they played tag amidst the padded seats. Carmina watched them for a while then turned to the miles and miles of slowly passing wilderness that once held homes and families and had in the last seventeen years been overtaken by nature.
It reminded her a lot of Hope County, the whole country did, now that she had seen more than her native state. Frames of houses disappeared under the weight of spring foliage, trees and vines, bushes, birds, and wildflowers, all made their home in those abandoned foundations.
It was beautiful, to Carmina's eye. Normal even, with her understanding of the world. Not at all like how her parents would wince and frown when they came upon a place they once knew. When they saw a building that no longer looked like their memory, no longer held the soul of the friend who once owned it. Buildings simply weren't precious to the girl, not when the world had been shaded in mystery for so much of her childhood.
A hand came down gently on her shoulder, and Carmina broke her gaze from the window to turn toward the interruption. She couldn't help the smile that drew her lips wide.
"Want to join us for cards?" Sequoia asks, her voice warm and friendly, and so very bright. Nothing like when she was trying to argue with Rush about taking the Hope County job, nothing like when she was playing her role as Captain of Security.
"I-Yeah sure, thanks." The teen pushes herself to her feet, and follows the woman down the narrow aisle way to the back of the train car, where three others wait, huddled around a card table.
They introduce themselves, when the two find their seats, and then cards are doled out and they ease themselves into a low stakes game of Go Fish.
"We'll work our way up to real cards in a few hands, dear," Renee Goodman tells her, when Carmina pauses at the declaration of the game. "Go Fish is just a good way to get the chatter going, think nothing of it."
"Is it that hard, usually? To get people talking, I mean."
The older woman shakes her head, and calls for a pair of two's from her husband, Mike, before responding."Even with the train, it is too monotonous a ride to not have some conversation and sometimes when we are hired by a single person from a larger group, like yourself, sometimes those people feel a bit intimidated joining in. So a little Go Fish goes a long way to break the ice, so to speak."
Carmina offers Renne a wide smile, takes two of her fours and empties her hand of cards. "Consider the ice broken."
The small group plays a few more hands as the train makes its way up the California coastline toward Oregon, where they would switch rail lines and make their way eastward. Time passes slowly, but steadily, the little group of card players trading harmless stories, as they pass cards and ante up scraps of paper when Go Fish turns into poker.
Mike talked about delivering a baby during an earthquake, the bearded man the last bit of TV he ever watched, which happened to be a police chase involving a truck full of eggs and a violent cracking ending. Renee and Sequoia spoke of fishing boats, and sailing out along the coast chasing schools of fish and the mutant dolphins that trailed alongside. And Carmina, Carmina spoke of the high mountains and low valleys of her home, of its vast and unending beauty and the people who made it home.
On the second day, the train crossed into Montana, passing through a mountain cut tunnel to the lands of Carmina's birth. The sky was as blue as the Silver Lake, the endless miles of prairie were thick with lush grasses and the blooms of spring flowers. Deer and distant herds of bison could be seen as the train pulled forward on heavy churning wheels.
A buzz had started up in the train cars, an underlying current of anticipation and release after a long and ponderous journey.
One woman however, grew more and more pale with each passing moment. Sara, the head of Hunting and Wildlife, pressed her face into her hands and swore.
"Are you okay?" Carmina asked, reaching across the aisle way to press her hand against the woman's shoulder.
The woman nodded, her greying blond hair catching the afternoon light and gleaming with the sunshine. She was younger than her parents by a few years, but carried her life's struggles more obviously. Wrinkles set deep by her eyes, skin permanently tanned with exposure, old radiation burns roughing the skin of her hands.
"Yeah...yeah, I'll be okay."
The woman smiled back, slightly brittle. It took her a moment to gather herself, in a way Carmina was familiar with. All the adults she grew up with had the same pause before their words, like forming certain sentences was as hard as moving the world itself.
"I used to live in Hope County." Sara said, eyes down at her own hands. "I lived there until right before the world ended. I left, a few months before the bombs fell. I had an interview for a job in California, so I flew out...but then… there was the escalation with North Korea, and some sort of civil war had broken out in Montana, and I never made it back. I never made it back, and — I left a fiancé behind, friends, coworkers. It's too much to hope that any of them are still alive but…"
Carmina stood, shifting out of her seat, across the aisle way and taking a seat across from the older woman, taking her hand gently in her own. "I may know them...If you tell me their names, I'll do my best...if not, my parents will know."
The woman squeezed her hands in return and took a deep breath. "I remember, your last name is Rye, right? Means your parents are…"
"Kim and Nick."
"Kim and Nick, right, and they owned the airfield, had radio adverts running during tourist season."
"Tourist season?"
"Yeah, spring through fall, hunters mostly, some outdoorsy types."
Sara leaned back, head straining over the back of her seat, her neck an elongated column.
"We lived in Falls End, my fiancé, Matt and I, I worked at in the Whitetails as a park ranger and my best friend was Mary May, she owned this bar called the Spread Eagle—"
That was when things fell apart. Literally, and explosively.
—
The bombs fell when she was eight. Falling up and down the coast like the sparks off a sparkler on the fourth of July. Leaving poison and death in their wake. She was lucky to live where she did, in a tiny seaside vacation trap outside of San Francisco.
The bombs boxed them in, but didn't wipe them out.
She remembered that it was a Wednesday because her parents were at work in the city, and she had gone to stay with the neighbors after school until her parents came home. Which was fine, really, since her neighbor Mila was her very best friend in the whole entire world, and Mila's abuelita made the best after-school snacks, and they could play until the streetlamps came on and her parents drove down the darkening streets after a long day away.
Everything was normal and safe and so so forgettable that Wednesday until sirens pierced the air, and Mila's dad was rushing out the back door to grab them both into his arms and run just as fast back into the house, to the basement, where he tucked them against a concrete wall, draped blankets over their forms and wrapped himself tight around them until the ground stopped shaking and the world had gone silent, but for the shaking breaths of abuelita.
The girls did not leave that basement until the sun had risen and set and risen again, and Mr. Rush had taken careful steps out into the street and down the debris strewn roads to see the damage for himself.
Sequoia's parents never came back. They died like all the others, in a city they never called home. It took her a long time to believe it, to stop looking out the front window into the street outside the Rushs' house and accept that her parents would not be driving down it, apologetic and full of so much love.
The bombs stole from everyone, she never forgets that, even when it would be easier to blame people for their cruelty without knowing its source.
The bombs stole normalcy, stole innocence, stole family and friends, and livelihoods. It gave livelihoods too, to those who were willing to work for it, to fight for it. People like her, like Thomas Rush, like little Carmina Rye.
It made her angry when the vultures came out, and came to prey on the hard working communities who eked out a living from irradiated soil. It made her hate gangs like the Highwaymen long before she ever met them, long before they ever attacked her family, her way of life. Hating is so easy, it's living that's hard.
—
The Highwaymen attack the train because of course they do. The bombs go off and then there is fire and bodies and bodies and bodies. Bodies and wreckage and Sequoia can do nothing because she is trapped under the weight of it all, and she needs to get free, she needs to do her job, she can't lose her family again .
And it's her family who saves her, Rush and Garret, shoving the heavy weight of metal shelving and stocked containers off of her legs and pulling her to her feet. It's Rush who presses a split scissor shank into her hands and presses one warm hand to the back of her neck. Affirmation, a physical check up, and iloveyouiloveyouiloveyou in one five fingered press of a hand.
He arms her up and sends her forth, and Sequoia Matthews cuts a swath of red through a mass of pink and black.
It's payback, it's vengeance, it's everything Abuela warned her against, it's everything the bodies of her family, scattered through wreckage, deserve, and everything short of what they need.
It comes to a stop though, as all things will, with her back pressed to the edge of a cliff, her Rush at her side, Garret at his. It comes to a face off, with her and some twins, the leaders of this particular band of Highwaymen, the blond haired and braided Mackey and Lou.
They bark like dogs, even as Garret begs and Rush negotiates and Sequoia waits, spring coiled with blood crusting under her fingernails. All that talk means nothing though. Garret still takes a bullet to the head, Rush a gun stock to the face and Sequoia ends up going over that cliff at her back.
Two hands pull her out of the water, but all she can think of is the man who pushed her in.
—
Prosperity is exactly what Carmina promised. A sanctuary hidden behind high wooden walls and fields of cultivated berry bushes.
"Thank you." Sequoia says to the girl when the gates open, and she gets her first glance at the project that was promised to her, to her people.
Carmina twitches, a confused smile crossing her face even as she turns away to drink in the sight of a home she had not seen in half a year.
"For not lying," Sequoia clarifies, "about this. About what you had. It means….my people didn't die for a lie."
Carmina turns back to her, her eyes the same blue as the Montana sky above catching hers the same time the girl's hand squeezes right around the Captain's. "I'm sorry, I wish…"
"Yeah, me too." Sequoia replies, just in time for the woman who could only be Carmina's mother to walk out of the grand lodge type house, to spot them at the gate, and come running.
The woman wraps her daughter in a hug, arms tight and squeezing and full of the promise to never let go . Sequoia can't help but watch it. A subtle, throat clench of not quite jealousy halting her before the woman's gaze catches her own, eyes flicking down, over, and up then settling on her face.
"Hey," The woman doesn't break the hug with her daughter so much as huddle the child safely under her arm, "I'm Kim Rye, Carmina's mom, it's nice to meet you…?"
"Sequoia Matthews… I am - I was-" The words get stuck in her throat, her hands feel heavy.
"Sequoia is with Rush." Carmina says, nodding slowly at the other woman. "She was in charge of security forces. They agreed to come help, a full train load of people but…" And it's there the teenager breaks, tears flooding her eyes, lips quivering even as her mother holds her tighter to her side.
Kim nods, lips pressing tight and bloodless. "The Highwaymen, we heard...saw the explosion from here. Our scouts haven't been that far west yet so we haven't been able to confirm...but the explosion?"
"They took out the train tracks." Carmina winced. "Boom. Gone. Just like that. Sequoia's people…"
The girl trailed off and her mother nodded, face going gentle at the mouth but skin around the eyes tight in a way that spoke of knowing loss. "I'm sorry. The survivors… anyone else who makes it - they'll have a place with us, for as long as they need it."
"Thank you." Sequoia says in return, swallowing around the grief swelling in her throat. "That means a lot."
The woman opened her arm, her free hand landing gently but firmly on the young woman's shoulder. "Let's go inside, get you two cleaned up, have some food, and then we can talk things over, okay?"
Sequoia Matthews could do nothing but nod. Taking another step forward on travel swollen feet, swallowing down the wallowing grief in her chest, the pressing feeling of loss of loneliness of fear of the unknown.
She steps inside the log mansion, old world money turned to new world practicality. She swallows fear down, bundles it close.
—
It takes a few days for anything to happen. For Prosperity's people to collect information, for Sequoia to confirm that no other survivors from the train would stumble their way in. For Kim and Carmina to scrap together a game plan from the half remembered conversations with Rush's specialists, for Sequoia to pull herself out of the blank eyed stare that had taken to affecting her in the quiet moments.
And the not so quiet moments, when the memories of fire and bombs and screeching metal become much and the Capitan shoves her way out of the spare room she had been assigned to walk the sturdy wall around Prosperity. Patrolling the perimeter as if the men and woman on watch were her own squad of security. As if she had any ownership of the boards beneath her feet, or the fingers on the triggers of the guns that watched the walls.
Kim finds her there early one morning, the older woman's short hair mussed from sleep and not yet brushed back into place. She is wearing old sweatpants shoved into overlarge boots and a worn tank top that does little to cut through the cold chill of a spring morning.
"Still can't sleep, huh?" The woman asks, offering the Captain a cup of pine nettle tea before taking a sip of her own. "I'd say it gets better but…it doesn't really. It's been seventeen years since the war and I still find myself thinking about what I lost."
"Does the bombing really count as a war?" Sequoia asks, before bringing the cup to her mouth. The tea itself has a slightly citrus flavor, resiny at times, slightly bitter, but is a common enough flavor to be comforting. Sara used to brew it when they were low on citrus, the vitamins within the needles good for fighting off scurvy.
"Not...not that war. Before the bombs…by three or four months maybe, there was a war in Hope County. A civil war maybe…. between the residents and a religious cult. The government never stepped in, it was just folk killing folk all hours of the day. That's the war I mean."
They stood for a long moment in silence.
"It's better." Kim says at last, "When you have something to do, something productive that can at least take your mind off your loss for a minute or two. Carmina and I, we've been talking, and if you're willing, if you want to, I may have a few ideas that can help you take your mind off things. For a while at least."
The young woman nods. "Yeah, Yeah I'd like that."
—
Something productive ends up being a welfare check on a kid whose father had passed away not too long ago. "Bean" and his dad had done a lot for Prosperity in the early days, working to help establish the walls, and collect information about the local plants and wildlife. Kim wanted the Captain and Carmina to make sure the kid was safe, to bring him back behind Prosperity's walls if possible.
"I mean he's a little weird." Carmina said as she walked easily along a fallen tree. "But he's not like dangerously weird."
"You know him then? From before the Highwaymen showed up?" Sequoia asked in return, eyes down upon the leaf litter, placing each foot with an exhausted sort of care that made Carmina shake her head.
"You haven't spent much time in the woods have you?"
"Ah no… Most of the settlements we helped were coastal, the whole forest and mountain thing is pretty new… I'd take a boat any day over this park ranger thing." Sequoia jokes.
"It's a good thing you have me then." Carmina said with a put upon sigh that did little to hide her amusement. "But yeah, I've known Bean for a long time. He's a little younger than me, a second year bunker baby, but there were so few other Resistance kids near our age… we did end up playing together a lot."
"Resistance?"
"I-yeah, mom's told you about the war right? Between the people of Hope and the New Edeners? Or well they used to call them Peggie's then. I, uh, don't know for sure, but I'd assume they've got more kids my age too."
Sequoia nods and makes an acknowledging sound. "Still a no-go between your two groups?"
"Not, not as much. There is tension sure, especially with people Mom's age and older, but it's been peaceful? I guess. Since the world emerged again. They do their thing, we do ours. We try and keep out of each other's way, and...ignorance is bliss I guess."
Carmina stepped out of the woods onto a dirt packed road, fifty yards away a wooden house stood, half overtaken by the pink flowering vine which seemed to encroach on nearly every stationary surface in Montana.
"The Highwaymen have been going after New Eden too." Carmina says. " I don't know if they've been successful in finding the settlement just yet, but our scouts say they've seen the Prophet's Hunters attack those motocross wannabes at night."
Satisfaction raises up and nearly turns Sequoia's response into a purr. "Good."
—
Bean is young, blond, and has the nervous disposition of a particular kind of lapdog. A stream of innuendo passes through his mouth, but after a shared look with Carmina, Sequoia knows that's simply one of the features that makes him odd, but not a dangerous kind of odd.
Carmina bosses him around, helping him pack up what little clothing and supplies he has left after the Highwaymen stole the rest of his maps and info charts, and shoves it all on the rack bolted onto the kids bike.
"You know the way back to Prosperity?" Carmina asks him as she bungees the final bag into place.
"I, yeah, of course!" Bean protests. "Cartography is kind of my thing, Carmina, what would It look like if I couldn't remember my own way around a place? I'd be some sort of - of two pump chump!"
Carmina winced and shook her head. "Right. Well. You head that way then. Cap and I will meet you back there soon as we have your stuff back from the Highwaymen, okay?"
The kid nods, mounting his bike and peddling away with a "Sure! Sounds great!" Tossed over this shoulder.
"He's weirder than I remembered." Carmina says with a sigh, before hitching her assault rifle higher up on her shoulder and leading Sequoia back into the woods, heading in a different direction than which they came. "I guess six months still isn't enough to get rid of that naivety."
"Kind of impressive though." Sequoia agrees, then flails as her foot hits wet leaf litter and goes sliding out from under her. She manages to snag onto the younger girl's shoulder before she hits the ground in full and she can't help the embarrassed laugh that sneaks through her lips. "Sorry."
Carmina just snorts and nudges Sequoia with her arm once her feet are settled under her again. "We're going to work on your woodcraft tomorrow. Imagine if you slip when a Highwayman pops out of the bush. It'd be so embarrassing."
"I'd probably have to kill myself. My ego would never recover." The woman joked back, eyes back on the ground and feet carefully following.
"It'd be a tragedy."
"Nothing short of Hamlet." The girls grinned at each other and crested a rise, falling to their knees to better scout the barnyard and table set up below. A group of seven in white and black mingled around a nearly naked man. Their voices were jovial, spirits high, cards and chips exchanged hands. Papers traded back and forth as payment for losses.
The Captain settled the saw launcher into her hands, fingers checking over the throwing mechanism before she cut her eyes at the girl at her side. "Best get to it then?"
Carmina nodded, stood up, and fired.
—
It was dark by the time they managed to track down the hideout where Bean's employee Richard had hidden his boss's business plan. Unluckily, the Highwaymen had also found their way there and smoke was rising from the bunkers open hatch.
Three men stood around it, fingering glass bottles full of liquor and rag and watching the blaze below. A fourth, a woman, judging by her size and the crop top, stared out over the landscape, rifle snug in the crook of her arm.
The saw launcher could probably take out the three men, or at least cause enough chaos to begin with to keep their attention from automatically turning towards the two of them, Sequoia figures.
Her hand sneaks out and presses against Carmina's arm, then points forward, drawing the girls attention to the woman. Sequoia starts to count down from five with her fingers, dropping her hand to her weapon when the count would have hit two, and then raises the launcher and fires.
The saw blade streaks across the yard and buries itself in one of the men's chest pieces.
Sequoia swears, hand snatching at another disk to load it in, even as Carmina opens fire, bullets cutting into the woman and downing her in the time it takes for the remaining two men to stop their surprised yelling and return fire.
Bullets thud into the ground at their feet as they split ways, each dashing for a bit of cover before returning fire once again. Bullets are traded back and forth, whizzing by body parts, and kicking up dirt.
Finally finally Sequoia manages to get another sawblade loaded and fired. This one has a better spread, cutting into one man's neck before rebounding off a well placed rock to slam into the other. Carmina's bullets give chase, and steal the rest of their lives away.
"Fuck!" Carmina swears, fighting through the last burst of adrenaline and popping up from behind her cover to buzz her way towards the fallen.
"I need to get faster on the reload." Sequoia says after a shaky breath. "Maybe get a sidearm too."
Carmina kicks her foot at the woman. "She's got one, could do for now...at least until we get back to Prosperity and can rig up something better."
"Yeah." Sequoia steps towards her, and crouches by the woman, wincing as she slides the aforementioned gun from its holster. She stands, steps back, and busies herself with checking the gun over. Making sure its action is smooth, that its clip is full and safe to fire.
"I wish it was easier." Sequoia says when it's all done and there is no noise in the field but for the crackle of fire and the distant hoot of an owl. "Killing people. Sometimes I wish I liked it more."
Carmina looks at her, and then at the body that lays not far from their feet. "But this is what you do...isn't it?"
The woman shakes her head, her long dark hair sliding over her shoulders with a quiet rasp. "Not this." She steps towards the bunker, and looks down into the orange glow. "I protect people. I make sure their homes are safe. Secure. I'm Rush's Captain of Sec- I'm not this. This isn't what my job is supposed to be."
Carmina sighs, nods, and brushes past her to slide down the ladder and into the bunker. She climbs back up, a few minutes later, coughing smoke from her lungs and bearing a jostled stack of papers.
Sequoia takes her by her arm and leads her away from the billowing smoke, pressing a canteen of water into the girl's hand and waiting for a sign that the coughing fit has passed. They sit, side by side for a long moment, watching the smoke trail up.
"It would be nice." Carmina says finally. "If this is as hard as it's going to get."
—
The moon is but a sliver in the sky, barely reflecting enough light to brighten the space between the trees enough for them to navigate. Or well, enough for Carmina to navigate, her hand clasped around the other woman's, pulling her noisily through the underbrush.
It's late enough at night for them to be feeling the strong desire for bed, for their thick soled boots to feel heavy, and the effort of stepping carefully and quietly to have deserted all but the staunchest woodsman.
Which is why it surprises them so when a deer comes bounding straight through their path, the pale pelted animal passes within feet of them, an arrow pinned to its flank.
"Jesus!" Sequoia curses, her tongue turning the word into something exotic, even as she startles backwards, taking Carmina with her.
In the time it takes for them to settle their feet, a figure bursts through the brush, bow and arrow in hand, and bowstring pulled back before releasing forward with a vibrating twang . The deer cries out, far to their right hand side, falls hard to the ground and lays silent.
The figure turns to them, nods once, and steps off the deer path to follow his quarry.
"New Eden." Carmina whispers to Sequoia, hand clasping tight with fading fear at the sudden shock.
The other woman lets out a shuddering breath, before releasing the younger girl's hand and shaking the tension out of her arms. "Wait a second, okay?"
She steps off the path and follows the hunter into the woods, following the near glowing beacon of his pale hooded shirt.
"Excuse me, hi," She says, as she steps around the kneeling man, and pauses at the other side of the fallen deer, where they can each see the other without having to crane their necks. "I'm Sequoia, I have a question or two if you don't mind me-"
"Go ahead," the man says, pulling a knife from his belt to slice the deers jugular. Sequoia winces and looks away, focusing over his shoulder as he works.
"I-uh, I was part of a group coming to Hope County on a train, there was an explosion about four days ago...and I - the Highwaymen that is."
The man looks up and nods once, solemnly. "I am sorry about your people. Their loss was unnecessary."
"Thank you," The Capitan swallows, "I know there were some survivors, taken by the Highwaymen who ambushed us….Have you, or any of your people seen where they might have been taken?"
The man pauses long enough to take a breath, the kind of breath, Sequoia knows that one takes before delivering bad news. "I'm sorry no. My people don't travel that far west, and the Highwaymen haven't established themselves northwards enough to have outposts near The Eden."
He wipes his knife clean and pulls a length of rope from his belt, starting to weave it between the deer's hooves. "I can ask the other Hunter's to keep an eye out. Give them your name and your description so that if we find anything we can deliver the news."
"Thank you, I appreciate that."
The man nods, flicking a blood wet finger towards the white expanse of his shoulder. Embroidered into the rough cloth, is the dark outline of a lionesses head, sharp and minimalist like the mascots she could remember from school.
"Look for this mark or anyone wearing a Buck in the same place." He says, "They won't mind speaking to a sinner like you."
It's the way he says sinner that takes Sequoia aback, less like an accusation than a joke that's lost its humor.
He stands then, pulling the trussed deer up over his shoulders and settling the bow in his hands. He nods once at Sequoia, then steps away into the woods and darkness.
—
Carmina wakes up in the room she shares with her mom, sunlight is coming in strong through the gossamer curtains, and she knows she has slept in long past her usual time.
She takes her time getting ready after pressing her hand to the window pane to judge the day's temperature. Still too cold to forgo the vest, so she slides that on too before she heads out into the mezzanine overlooking the lodge's great room.
Her mom and Wheaty huddle around the tables below, heads bent over the maps and fingers chasing roads across it's printed surface. Mayor Minkler sips at a coffee cup while leading the youngest kids through their alphabet. She can hear his "C is for Cougar" "D is for Dog" from all the way upstairs, his voice as jovial as she has always known it to be.
Carmina turns away, and walks farther down the hallway, past the room Roger shares with his wife and daughter, to the small spare room they had given to Sequoia. The door is already cracked so she taps her knuckles against it before pushing it open and sticking her head inside.
The room, like all the others has the bones of what once was a very modern interior, the bed frame all sleek dark lines and expensive wood. The dresser and side table to match. A gold framed mirror sits over the dresser, and bits and bobs from the woman's pockets lay scattered across the wooden table top. The bed is a bit of brightness in the room, with its worn parti colored quilt.
"Hey." Carmina says, eyes flicking over the other woman's form. She's wearing the same outfit as she had on the train, black cargo pants, and blue windbreaker over an old tshirt. Her hair is different though, pulled up in a long ponytail that would make Carmina jealous, were it not for the fact she knows how tangled it will get before the day is done.
"Hey." The Capitan returns smiling slightly as she slips a knotwork bookmark into the pages of the book she had been reading. "You talked to your mom yet?"
The girl shakes her head. "No, just woke up, did she tell you anything? Have something for us to do?"
The woman twists on the bed, sliding her feet off the edge and into the boots that waited below. She pauses, tying her laces, "Not that I've heard, just figured maybe, y'know, since our trial run yesterday went well enough."
They share a bit of a grin. "I was pretty serious about teaching you woodcraft, or at least the basics of it." Carmina says, stepping out into the hallway and leading the other woman down into the great room. "Though thinking about last night, I think we need to go over animals first. All the adults say the mutations around here got pretty severe and well, it's probably best we get you up to speed."
"That deer was pretty weird looking." Sequoia hums, "unless, they don't all have a white coat like that?"
"Oh no, they do. The bucks even have these red horns. Kind of spooky if you run into them at night."
They make a stop into the kitchen, filling water glasses from the pitcher on the counter, and snagging bowls of granola and dried apple slices.
They return to the main room, settling in at one of the pillow strewn corners of the room and take the time to eat. Mayor Minkler's class wraps its way up and the children scatter, running outside to play, while the old man pushes himself to his feet with a groan and eases the stiffness out of his knees.
"Mayor!" Carmina calls across the room, eyes of the adults darting up at the sudden noise before returning to their work, "Do you still have the animal cards? I want to show Sequoia."
The old man nodded, just as she knew he would and wandered over their way with a smile.
"Hello hello!" He greets the girls, hand pressing forward to take Sequoia's into his own. "Pleasure to meet you, I'm Virgil Minkler, I used to be the mayor here, and well the titles stuck, so call me that or Virgil, either is fine."
He pats at the pockets of his fishing vest before coming up with a packet of tied together photographs. He pulls the knot loose, and hands the collection to Carmina.
"Our friend Tracy took these." He said with a sigh, old eyes sad and hazy as he stares out over their heads at the bookshelf behind them. "Just make sure I get them back, okay Carmina?"
The girls nod, and he follows the children outside.
Carmina flips through the deck, pulling pictures as she goes, until she sets them out in rows of five, grouping them by herbivore, carnivore, bird and snake. Each of the photos bears a crystal clean shot, vibrantly colored and expertly taken. Each of the animals only bear the slightest commonality with the creatures their species claims them to be.
"The ones on the Right side of the line are the most dangerous, so lets start there." Carmina says, "For Herbivores, it's going to be the bison.."
—
Kim gave them a shortwave radio, a list of five coordinates to scavenge for useful items and sent them on their way with a kiss to Carmina's hairline and a gentle squeeze of Seqouia's hand.
The two girls decide to take Carmina's car, an old beat up two door, and drive with windows down over the uneven dirt roads. The worn rumbling of its engine spooking wildlife from their path, and Sequoia watchs bright flashes of white pelted deer as they spring through the underbrush, and the flocks of birds scattering from their perch.
The first two stops prove fruitful, the assortment of scrap metals, reclaimed tools, and old seed bags jostling in the trunk of the car.
Their quest takes them south and west of the ranch. Travelling for a time along the Henbane River, Carmina's eyes drift now and again to those foreign banks as she drives.
"I'm surprised we haven't run into any Highwaymen." Sequoia calls out of the rumble.
"They learned their lesson." Carmina says, turning off the road onto a grassy cut through, that probably was at one time, someone's driveway. "It's dangerous to cross the river this far southwest. Leftovers from the war."
She slows the car to a halt, and removes the key from the ignition. Both women step out from the car and descend upon the old hunter's cabin. Shining lights through the busted out windows of the one room house, and crouching to peer inside what were once high windows, but now nearly covered by displaced sediment.
"Land mines?" The Captain asked as she pried a wooden beam out of the window and slid her way inside.
Carmina followed after her, letting the beam of her flashlight Illuminate the space. "Not quite...It's ummm. A plant, this flower, called Bliss. Pretty white flowers, sort of like a lily. Mom says it was genetically modified by the Peggie's. Let out some sort of hallucinogenic pollen, and um used to produce some sort of reactive oil…. anyway, the stuff grows rampant on that side of the river. We send out teams all throughout the spring and summer to burn whatever patches end up growing in the valley."
"And the Highwaymen have had a run in with the stuff?" Sequoia confirms, as she works to open a rusty metal cabinet, the ugly metal ones she remembers seeing in shows about office life.
"Yeah. Lou sent a whole lot of them across the river when they first came to Hope. Back when everyone still lived in their own homes, before we made Prosperity… They, uh, never came back. The Bliss got them, turned them into Angels."
She shoves some things into the satchel hanging at her side, then stills. "You can still see them sometimes, stumbling along the riverside. Two years later, their minds all rotted out, the body still keeps moving."
"Angels?" Sequoia asks, her voice tinted with derision.
"I don't know why, you'll have to ask M-"
The radio at the Capitan's hip crackles to life, the receiver struggling to pick up the other call, but what words do come through are fast and panicked.
" Hey! I uh ne - - - badgers and they got in - - - real Bl - - - up - - - bullets please help m - - Old Red G- - - "
"Shit." Says Carmina, dropping the rusted cast iron skillet she had been looking at. "I think that's Selene."
The Captain makes a questioning sound, turning around to face the girl.
"She's a friend, and sort of our local doctor. Shit, okay, umm. I think she said she was by Old Red's Grave, that's not too far from here. We can go help her out right?"
Apologies for the rather sudden ending, but that was as far as the initial chapter got before I scrapped it for the new direction. I hope you enjoyed this look into what Carmina & Sequoia got up to in the time before the main fiction.
I'd love to hear any thoughts you have~!