Chapter 28

Meetings.

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"So, what's next on the docket?" Dave asks as he looks around the meeting room.

It's been almost a week. Six days now trying to sort out what they have to work with, putting together a decent infirmary, doing a long-overdue inventory, and organizing all the tools and equipment that Furiosa claims belongs to the Citadel, rather than any given resident. Of course, it had taken a bit to get to this point. They had been willing to give the two Gamers a chance, but they took a 'trust but verify' attitude toward everything that Dave said for quite a while.

Given the way the last tyrant had treated women, he can understand why. But that understanding doesn't make it suck any less that these people are lumping him in with a sociopath, rapist, murdering cult-leader.

It had taken Mindy literally slapping one of the younger women who had been maybe a little too pushy trying to figure out what supposed 'hold' Dave had over Mindy to break them of it. Slapping her hard enough to knock the woman on her ass. Then holding a meeting with the rest of the women in charge wherein she screamed obscenities at them for having the nerve to assume she would need rescuing from anybody, much less her own damn boyfriend.

Even then, they walked a razor's edge with Mindy's patience on a daily basis. The mere presence of the gamers spooks the populace to the point that they haven't even bothered to do any training. Most of the people here are decidedly less than standard as for as their stats go. Most likely a function of terrible nutrition during their childhoods and the aforementioned chemical and radiation problems that dot the landscape. They'd like to stay on top of their game, but the likelihood of some locals panicking and shooting them during the workout seems extremely high.

Furiosa turns to him and offers a grim look.

"We had two people die in the first tower yesterday. We're not even sure what killed them. I know that the infirmary you wanted isn't quite up to spec, but we only have about four hundred people here, since the bandits went out of their way to kill anybody that wasn't actually in the towers the time they stopped by and you sent them packing." She sighs and shakes her head. "To make it even worse, something like three hundred and sixty people that live within the Citadel are male. The last guy to run the place only had a use for females when he considered them worth passing on his legacy or they were good enough at fighting that he could ignore the fact that they were girls at all, and to the best of my knowledge I was the only one that pulled that off. Almost all the youths he accepted from the wasteland folks either became slaves working in the slums, or they were trained up as his soldiers. He called them his War Boys." She shakes her head. "Anyway, the two that died yesterday were both women, and we don't have enough women here as it is. We need to figure out if this is something that can be dealt with."

Dave shakes his head.

"Not with the women you have available." He gets some dirty looks but continues anyway. "You just told me that you have around forty women living here. If every single one of these women was capable of bearing children, you would still likely be sixty short at least to have any real prayer at a viable population before inbreeding took you out. That's with record-keeping and a breeding program, mind you. If you want people to be able to marry for love or choice or any other, you know, civilized reason? You'll need thousands of more people. Given that at least three-quarters of your forty are probably either too old to still have children or are in bad enough shape that they couldn't take one to term, that leaves you, ten viable breeding females, give or take. You're a bit short."

Then he shakes his head. "As for your dead women? I'll take a look, but you people are going to have to make some hard choices pretty soon I think. I don't know exactly what idiot tore stuff apart to build things in here, but I've seen what I am pretty damn sure is old asbestos tile and insulation in the junk piles, some stuff around that I am positive is covered in lead paint, and some even older things which are covered in green paint. That worries me." When he gets the looks of confusion, he continues. "Back in the day, like a hundred and fifty years ago? They made green paint using arsenic. They stopped because, well, arsenic."

He shrugs. "Honestly? I can take a look at the bodies if you like. If it's something really obvious I might be able to find it. But unless it is, I suspect the issue will be that I am too spoiled for options to figure it out. We need to take the time to go through this place and make it stop killing people before we worry too much about anything else." He shakes his head again. "If we had high-end scanning equipment? Or even a bang-up chemistry set I could use for testing, that might change things. But as it stands? If the people that brought the bodies in didn't see it, chances are I won't."

Mindy looks at them all, kind of confused.

"So, I saw your hydroponics garden. Interesting, that you bothered with that. I mean, eventually, you'll need a hell of a lot of farmland if your community grows, but you could stave that off for a good long while by just planting crops on top of the three towers. All you have right now is the hydroponics for a few things and a single little farm that's what, maybe an acre and a half? That isn't enough to feed what you have here now. What gives?"

Furiosa shakes her head in irritation.

"Joe, the tyrant jackass that used to run this place? He wanted this tower to be his. It's where the best food was hydroponically grown, where all the knowledge is kept, and the room you are in now was where he kept his harem of slaves. Which isn't to say that we weren't all his slaves, but most of us had the benefit of being ignored, a lot of the time."

She has her mechanical arm removed for the meeting and rubs thoughtfully at the stump, scratching it a bit here and there.

"The tower you entered in is the slums. It's where his slaves lived and worked. The second tower was the middle class, basically. Still his slaves, but people that had use to him aside from just labor. Skills or loyalties that he could manipulate for his own ends. That's where the farm is because that is where the people that work it are. He didn't want anything grown on this tower because it was off-limits to most and he didn't want his slaves tromping around in here. As for the slums? He never explained why we didn't put a farm on that one, but I can tell you easily enough why he didn't." She sighs. "Two reasons, really. The first is that if there is food on top of that tower, then the poor could theoretically feed themselves. He wanted them always to be begging for scraps to keep them under control. The second reason is that he would have needed to run a pipe over there. If you think he was tightfisted with the food rationing, it's got nothing on the control he maintained over the water supply."

The poor ruined man with his pudgy, child-like bearing which sits so comically on a face that is covered in a short beard, is the next to speak.

"We have to restrict the water. We can't let it get out that we are giving out water, there'll be no end to the mouths that will come, and we can't feed them. Plus it'll make us look weak."

Mindy looks at the little man with a raised eyebrow.

"We just told you that without more people, your town here is doomed. With the potential baby-making capacity you have now, you'd be lucky to make it fifty years. You really think the way to have a happier, healthier village here is to leave them on water restrictions and feed them barely enough to keep them alive?"

The malformed man looks at her with trepidation, but it is obvious that he is used to holding his own around people that are his physical superior because that trepidation doesn't stop him for a second.

"Look, I get that you are some crazy good fighter out in the wasteland. I can respect that. But if you really can't see the disaster that being too nice to random scum that walks up will bring us, then you haven't got a clue."

Mindy opens her mouth angrily, and to the surprise of everybody at the table, he talks right over her.

"The people that make it here through the wastelands are usually suffering from at least a few different physical problems. But consider instead the ones that didn't make it here. They didn't make it because they tried to keep their hands clean and died for it. The ones that are here? They killed to get here. More than once, most of the time. The only exceptions are the ones we brought in as children. And while you probably feel fine with a bunch of desperate murderers suddenly getting the royal treatment, It's safe to say that I have my reservations." He pokes at the hose on his breathing aid with his stubby little hand.

Furiosa shakes her head. "Corpus, you can't be thinking like that. The only way we can make anything that will last is to get the settlement big and strong enough that the bandits leave us alone. For that we need people. To make people loyal, we need to treat them well."

"My dad kept them in line." Is the muttered response. Furiosa isn't having any of that.

"Your father was a murdering rapist that built himself a death cult and ruled it with fear." She looks around the table. "Anybody want to try to go back to that? We could probably do it. Wouldn't take much to work out a deal with the remains of the Bullet Farm and Gas Town. They have to be getting damn thirsty by now." She passes her eyes around, stopping for a moment on each person's face. "Anybody interested, raise your left hand."

Then before anybody even has a chance to respond, she sweeps the stump of her left arm across the table and knocks her prosthetic to the floor with a loud crashing of metal. It was largely built from scrap and designed for combat use. Despite that, perhaps even because of that, the device weighs close to twenty pounds and is potentially the most overbuilt piece of crap that Dave and Mindy have ever seen.

When nobody raises their hand, not even Corpus, the fire in her eyes dims some.

"Corpus, I know you aren't your father. I know that a lot of this is coming from fear, but the only way to do this right is to try to make a future that children born tomorrow can be happier in than we were growing up. That's the only way to win this. Hell, your father, for all that he was a horrible wretch of a man, even he understood that children are the future. That's why he kept trying everything that every quack that came down the pike suggested trying to help you." She motions with her good hand at his bare chest, which is crisscrossed with old surgery scars. "The difference is, he didn't give a fuck about the community, he was willing to burn the community to the ground in his efforts to breed himself a new race based on him." She sighs. "And given that he's had what, like twenty wives that I know of and he's only had five children? I'd say that the problem probably lay with him."

She turns and faces the man directly now, and her tone is almost pleading.

"I want you here. You understand more of what goes on here than anybody does. More than your father did, I would say. You're smart, and you know people. We can use that. But if you want to leave, I know you have your thumb on a few people and I'll give you your pick of the vehicles we traded for a week ago. Plus a couple of barrels of gasoline, a few weapons and some ammo, and enough food and water to try to find something better. But I want you to think of something before you decide to try that."

Her voice settles into something that is an unhappy medium between her previous pleading tone and to one of mild rebuke, maybe even a slight threat.

"If you survive the local bandits, and find a clean water supply, you are still in the middle of a huge fucking desert. So how loyal do you think whoever you might take with you is going to be when they are getting hungry, and you can't run away." Then she sighs. "That said, I can't make you stay without locking you up, and I can't make you sit in on this council. I also can't be having people that are disloyal to our goals to this degree on the council moving forward. So I need to know, do you want to stay? If so, do you want to remain on the council? If no, then you are welcome to stay within the Citadel but I need you out of this room."

He looks at her, shocked. "You'd kick me off the council?!"

She rolls her eyes. "No, Corpus. I said I would kick anybody off the council that was still looking to make kidnapping, rape, slavery, and horrific abuses the standard policy again. Before you damn anybody else, maybe you should consider what would have happened to you if people weren't there for you?"

Mindy makes a 'snerk' sound trying to hold back a laugh. Then she gives up on that and just speaks.

"Look, Corpus. You are kind of the poster child for universal healthcare and a universal basic income, buddy. I think you might be better off getting on the bandwagon. I have a feeling that if things get tight, and you've talked her into being an uncaring bitch? The first corner that is getting cut is the time those batteries sit on their charger, being fed electricity from a generator that exists only to charge batteries. Between your chair and your breather, you probably go through about a liter of fuel a day right? Give or take? Maybe don't try to be so high and mighty when you need more help than most."

The small man on his chair reddens. He is privately willing to admit that everything they said about his father was true, and they only knew about maybe half of it at that. But it doesn't change the fact that while he is intelligent, and Furiosa is right in that he knows more about this place than even his father did, he's meat if he's caught outside the towers. It also does little towards putting a balm on his real issue, which is that eventually, his worthless body is going to fuck him over again. Like it has so many times in the past. When that happens, thanks to the rest of his family having been killed he'll need the help of these people.

Furiosa he knows the best by far. He'd grown up with her as his father groomed her to be one of his brides. He'd kicked her back to the War Boys for entertainment value when a month of rapes didn't result in conception.

She was fourteen at the time.

Instead of going quietly into damnation to be defiled as they pleased until her body was used up and she was disposed of, she had instead embraced the life of a soldier with an almost unholy determination. She'd been damn good at it. She'd become his father's premier leader in combat, sending her out to deal with things while he stayed safe in his fortress.

But she'd managed to never lose her humanity. To never become something that he couldn't trust. So, rationalizing his choice as best he can as though there actually is one to make, he nods. Reluctantly, perhaps. But he agrees.

Mindy shakes her head. "Look, we definitely need to work on increasing the size of the farm and getting water piped to all three towers. But beyond that, a basic redesign of the towers to make them a hell of a lot more comfortable and less dangerous probably wouldn't be a bad idea. As for defense, I have to ask, why the hell aren't you using the tops of the towers as a staging ground? I mean, we farm the center obviously, but how tough would it be to build some basic low-tech defenses into the tops. Catapults, maybe. I'd think ballista would be better, but I don' see a lot of trees around here."

Dave nods thoughtfully. "Not a bad idea, though I am betting we would get more mileage out of some kind of trebuchet." He smirks. "The lack of trees might have made building ballista difficult anyway. Unless we wanted to use winches and the leaf springs off of junked vehicles I guess."

Then he looks thoughtful and digs out a small notepad and pencil to sketch out some basic designs.

Mindy smirks while the rest of the table looks on in confusion. Dave eventually turns to Furiosa.

"You know what? I still think trebuchet might be better, just because they can throw rocks and that's about the only thing you have a surplus of here. But they are a lot harder to aim, and it might be worth it to work up some metal ballista to go with it. It wouldn't take a lot to make something that could fling four or five-foot lengths of rebar. Some basic fletching and a sharpened head made of stronger steel, and I could see them being useful against these assholes you are having a problem with."

Mindy frowns. "You are way more into this kind of thing than I am, but if my memory isn't failing me, aren't trebuchet used mainly to batter down walls? With giant rocks?"

Dave nods. "Sure. But what they are is a device for flinging things that use a counterweight to get it done. I figure a scoop full of stone grapeshot the size of bowling balls flung down on a car from on high should cause a variety of damage, and once it's built the ammo should be pretty cheap." He pauses for a moment, then continues. "For the record? I'd much rather just work on my gunsmith skills, but without a source of powder there isn't really much of a chance of that being viable anytime soon."

Corpus answers this with an intense look, though there is still a bit of fire dancing in his eyes.

"If you're feeling up to it, you could always go take on the bullet farm. They have a big manufacturing facility based out of an old lead mine." He smirks. "Unless your shit isn't as hot as you'd like people to think?"

Dave and Mindy look at each other and start laughing, completely derailing Furiosa's abandoned attempt at reeling in the attitude of the little troublemaker. Finally, after nearly a full minute of chuckles, Dave turns to the bright red face of the embarrassed problem child.

"Wow. Does that actually work on people around here? Are the locals compensating that much?"

Mindy shakes her head, still wiping one eye and trying to reign in her chuckles.

"The males outnumber females here like ten to one, Dave. I would guess anything with a penis is pretty much willing to bathe in sewage while singing 'Girls Just Wanna Have Fun' and scrubbing themselves down with steel wool if they thought it would get a lady's attention."

The one-handed woman is shaking her head, a smile flitting across her face.

"That kind of thing doesn't bother you two?"

Mindy shrugs. "Well, sure it does. But everybody here is just doing the best they can with what they have, and what he has is intelligence, knowledge of the area and situation, a big mouth, and boundless fucking paranoia. I mean, he's been losing power socially pretty much since we got here and his dad's legacy isn't helping him there. To be honest? If he wasn't trying to start some shit that could get us killed, I'd be wondering what is going on behind the scenes that he hadn't decided to blather on about at the meeting."

One of the younger women is shaking her head in horror.

"You think he is trying to get you killed?"

Dave snickers. "Oh, hell yeah. I'm not saying he'd pull the trigger or even get somebody else to do it. But if he had a chance to set things up in such a way that we died and he could blame us or somebody else for it, I don't think he'd shed a lot of tears."

Furiosa is looking at them in astonishment.

"And this doesn't bother you?"

Turning her way while setting down her glass of water, Mindy answers with a giggle.

"To be honest, I am kinda hoping he tries. I'm getting bored. We haven't even had a chance to train for more than a week now."

With an eyebrow raised, Furiosa looks confused.

"Why not? I mean, it maybe isn't a real gym, but practice on the ground between the three towers would be fine, I'm sure."

Mindy groans in annoyance.

"Dave, I can't take it anymore. We gotta tell somebody and start getting this shit done because I am gonna lose my fucking mind if we have to spend the next year in this damn waste putting everything right."

Dave sighs. She's right, he knows. Even still though...

"Fine. I get it, I'm getting annoyed too." He turns to the 'leader' of the citadel. "Furiosa, we need to tell you a few things and we'd rather do it with some privacy. You want to clear the room, or should the three of us go somewhere else?"

There is a lot of confusion, but while not everyone there is a fan of them it's safe to say that Furiosa is.

"I guess we can talk in the storeroom here." She looks around to the rest of the 'Citadel Council' and stands. "I'll be back in a few minutes, whatever they have to say." Then she steps out of the room with Dave and Mindy following.

The 'storeroom' next to the meeting hall isn't a very large room as these things go. Ten feet by twenty and boasting an eight-foot ceiling, give or take. It contains now what it did when they were doing an inventory on it a few days ago, and the collection is far-reaching and ridiculous, with only one thing that ties the different items together.

They all look new. The rest of the Citadel is full of rust, sand, dirt, and refuse. But this room only holds things that are cleaned up. Rust removed if there ever was any. Cloth washed and sorted by type. Clothes, some of which even still have the tag on them from whatever store was looted however long ago. Tucked away in trunks and such, anything that can seal at least reasonably well. Drawers and drawers of finer things. Silverware, an actual set of dishes that look like they may have even been expensive at one point. Everything Joe would need to keep his family happy long into the future, had he lived.

Well, lived and not lost his mind on a power trip, apparently.

Furiosa leans again dusty, but otherwise nice-looking wooden dresser and turns to face them.

"So what's this all about?"

Mindy smirks. "You want the long answer or the short one?"

Glancing at the wall between them and the room the rest of the council is waiting in, she shakes her head.

"Shorter is better I think."

The two of them reach in front of themselves and poke something in front of themselves.

Furiosa's mouth drops open and her eyes open wide. Mindy giggles.

"Just hit the 'Y' and we'll tell you the rest. Believe me, it's worth it."

MM MM MM MM MM MM

Author's Note:

This isn't coming together nearly as easily as I had hoped. I suspect it's because I actually have quite a bit of nostalgia for the first three movies that starred Mel Gibson. You know, back before he outed himself as some kind of sad racist jerk. It's always harder to push the pieces around if you actually care about the source material in a serious kinda way. Glad I picked the timeline I did. If I was trying to do this in one of the earlier timelines I'd probably still be staring at the screen in misery.

One more chapter here, maybe two for a total of four. I'll post stats again when they hop dimensions, as things won't be changing too much for this run anyway.

Reviews are appreciated, and a favorite/recommendation pretty much makes my day when I see them! Coin of the realm, after all.