2:00 PM
The Sanctuary

Daryl found where they were working on converting the motorcycles, in a mechanic's garage outside the factory building, which must have once been used to tune up factory vehicles. It was a nice set-up, with power tools and lifts, one of which currently supported a truck that looked to be in a half-state of repair. He introduced himself to the men at work inside, as their "trade partner from Georgia." They introduced themselves as DJ, Darren, and Alden. Alden was baby faced, maybe twenty-one or twenty-two, and seemed more of an apprentice than an actual mechanic. They were all guards and supply runners as well, they said.

"So you know how to convert engines?" DJ asked him.

"Nah, but tell me what to do, and I'll do it." He'd also file away the instruction and have it to draw on later if he ever wanted to convert his own engine.

"Well, to be honest, we're just learning from books." DJ motioned with a wrench to a stack of books on a workbench. "Help yourself, and if you have any questions, let me know. I might know the answer. Or I might not."

Daryl wandered over to the bench, grabbed a manual, and went to work on one of the bikes. A few minutes later, he asked, "How many points is a book like this?" Gavin had told them they could sell ammunition or other goods for points in the marketplace if they wanted to buy anything there.

"It's from the new library," Alden told him. "That the council put together in the hall to the boiler room. It's just a fine of one point if you don't return it on time."

"The council also started a school," Darren said. "The kids hated that. That was one good thing you could say about Negan. He didn't make anyone go to school."

"School's only two and a half hours a day, though," Alden said. "Otherwise those kids would always run wild."

As if to prove the point, a soccer ball came flying into the garage. Daryl kicked it back out and asked, "Can I borrow it?" Daryl asked. "The manual? Just for tonight?" He could read the thing in a couple of hours and commit it to memory. He had knack for doing that with manuals, hunting guides, or firearms guides. He could read a work of fiction, and it was in one ear and out the other. He wouldn't even remember the characters a week later. But when it came to guides, the information stuck for some reason.

"I guess," Alden said uneasily. "But it's due back tomorrow, and it's checked out under my name. So make sure you put it in the return box."

Daryl didn't say anything else for an hour. He just tinkered and became a fly on the wall. They talked as if he wasn't there.

"Did you hear the rumors?" Darren asked at one point. "Gavin found Jose. Dead and transformed. Apparently he ganged up with that banished Savior and they formed some kind of raiding crew, and now Gavin wants to eliminate them before they grow and ocme to invade us. I bet that's what the Council's meeting about right now."

"Well, I've had enough of war," Alden said. "You really think they'd mess with us, behind these fences, with our guns and grenandes and ammunition?"

"I don't know," Darren said, "but I figure playing soldier will pay extra points, so I'm throwing my hat in if a call goes out. I've finally saved up enough for some extended company tonight, and I'm going to need to replenish my account after that."

"I don't know how you can pay for that," Alden said.

"Well, I think Tiffany really likes me." Darren stood from the bike he was working on and wiped his hands with a rag. "She says I'm her favoirte."

DJ laughed. "That's what they make all their johns believe."

"Yeah? Is that what your sister made Negan believe?" Darren retorted.

DJ threw his wrench to the ground. It clattered on the cement as he took a menacing step forward. Daryl looked up from his work and saw Alden insert himself between the two men, arms outstretched between them. "Hey, hey, calm down you two. You don't want to be fined for brawling."

A line jumped in DJ's jaw, but he didn't take another step forward.

"Easy for you two to be sanctimonious about the company I keep," Darren muttered. "You're hooking up with Laura now." He jerked his head toward DJ. "And Alden's fucking your sister any time he makes a trade run to the Kingdom."

Now DJ turned his angry gaze on Alden.

"I'm not…" the young man insisted. "I'm not! We went on a picnic last time I was there. That's all."

Darren snorted and walked back to the bike he was working on. "Hey, Daryl, you ever take a girl on a picnic if you didn't want to fuck her?"

He'd never taken a girl on a picnic, period, except Carol, if you could call tossing back snacks on the caboose of the stopped train or drinking tiny bottles of wine and beer on the pedal boat a picnic. And he hadn't wanted to fuck her the first time he pickniced with her out on that lake. He'd just wanted to be with her. Or, hell, maybe he did want to fuck her and he just didn't know it yet. "Don't do picnics."

"I need to get myself on the trade team," Darren said. "Expand my horizons. I really want to visit Oceanside. I heard its full of hot women. Every camp seem to have more women than we do. It's not fair. And now all of Negan's former wives are living at the Kingdom, too."

"To keep them away from leches like you," DJ muttered.

"You've been to Alexandria, Alden," Darren said. "Any hot single women there?"

"I wasn't rating them."

"Who are the single women there?" Darren asked.

Alden sighed as he handed DJ a screwdriver from a toolbox. "Well there's Barbra. She does all the childcare. Denise. But I think she might be gay. She's their doctor's now that Aaron persuaded Alexandria's Council to banish Dr. Anderson for beating his wife. That was a few weeks ago. God, I wonder if Pete joined up with that Savior crew?"

"The lesson here is we have to stop banishing people," Darren said. "Hell, Jose didn't even do anything wrong!"

"Jose wasn't banished. He was just kicked off the council and fined," Alden insisted. "He chose to leave. And he absolutely did do something wrong. He tried to trade his vote for sex! That's political corruption."

Darren shrugged. "There ought to be some perks to councils membership, besides a private bedroom."

"Remind me not to vote for you," Alden replied.

"I'm not running. Nothing but a lot of work and little reward."

"I might," Alden said. "Run."

Darren snorted. "You're twenty, aren't you?"

"I'm almost twenty-two. And eighteen's the minimum age. I've been through a rebellion already. And if I'm going to have to live here—if I'm not going to be allowed to settle at the Kingdom, then I want to be a part of continuing to make the Sanctuary a better place."

"Enough politics," Darren said. "Tell me more about the single women of Alexandria."

"Francine, Annie, Holly," Alden listed. "And I guess Jess Anderson is single now that Pete's been banished."

"She hot?" Darren asked.

"I guess. But you don't have a chance with any of these women, so I don't know why you're asking."

"Saw a new woman talking with Gavin today," Darren said as he pulled apart an engine on the workbench. "Came back with him from that trade trip. She had gray hair, but she didn't look older than forty. Not much in the way of tits. Kind of flat chested, but she looked nice and lean. Looks like she might have a fine ass, too, though it's hard to tell in those work pa-"

Darren's words were cut off when Daryl seized the back of his shirt, jerked him away from the workbench, turned him around, and slammed him, chest-first, against a sedan with its hood open. "That's my wife you're talking about," he hissed.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa!" intervened Alden, walking quickly to the car. "Calm down now!"

When Daryl glared at him, Alden took a step back and smiled sheepishly.

"I didn't know!" Darren cried as he tried to push against the car and free himself from Daryl's grip.

Daryl let go, stepped back, and growled somewhere deep in his throat as Darren turned himself around and brushed himself off. "I didn't know, okay? My apologies. You don't look like the marrying type."

Daryl went back to work on the bike, and Darren fell silent. DJ and Alden kept up the chatter, sometimes related to the bike they were working on, sometimes not.

An hour later, Daryl had the engine converted and rebuilt.

"Holy Shit!" DJ said. "You actually know what you're doing!" The engine he and Alden were working on was still in pieces.

"Sure you need to borrow that book?" Alden asked.

"Yeah. Lot of other shit in here I could use." Daryl tucked the book under his arm and began to leave, but before he exited the garage, he paused by Darren, who was now working under the hood of the sedan. "Just so you know—not that you're ever gonna see 'em—but my wife's tits are goddamn perfect." And then he was out of the garage.

He walked toward the main factory building, and on the way he passed Gavin, now apparently out of his Council meeting, leaned on the top rail of a wooden pen and talking to a worker that was inside the pen, feeding four goats—a billy and three nannys. That was the Sanctuary's only source of milk other than trade. Daryl new because he'd heard Darren muttering about how eighty percent of the goat's milk was reserved for kids under 12, and that didn't leave much for making cheese and cooking. Gavin must have to deal with a whole lot of complaining, Daryl thought, and he suddenly felt sorry for the man. "Hey," he said. "Converted an engine for ya on one of the bikes."

Gavin blinked. "Already? Thanks."

"Figured I'd earn m'bed for the night. Gonna check out the marketplace now, less ya need me for something?"

Gavin shook his head and returned to his conversation with goat herder.

Daryl walked on to the marketplace. His stomach was growling. It was almost four, and he hadn't eaten since breakfast. He could go back to Gavin's apartment and grab some nuts or jerky or a two-month expired (but likely still edible) protein bar from his backpack, but he wanted to see what the marketplace had to offer. He'd seen people eating there earlier during their tour, at four cafeteria-style tables in the center.

He stopped first at the ammunition table and looked at the sign, which said 3 rounds per point - 9MM, .223 / 4 rounds per point - .22 / 2 rounds per point - .308

"Got fifteen rounds of 9 mm to sell," he told the woman behind the table. She had long, white hair and crow's feet beneath her olive eyes. A lot of the people in this marketplace were old. Daryl supposed this was some kind of light duty for people who couldn't handle guarding and gardening and harvesting and grinfding corn. "How's this all work?"

"First, you show me the ammo."

Daryl set his book momentarily on the table, reached into the pocket of his cargo pants and pulled out a loaded magazine. He emptied it of its twelve rounds on the table, and then pulled out three more loose rounds from his front shirt pocket. His handgun was already loaded with twelve rounds, and he had a third fully-loaded magazine on his belt, not to mention a box in his backpack in Gavin's apartment.

The woman picked up one of the rounds, held it up to the light of a lamp on her table, and examined it. She did that with each and every round. On the fifth round, she took an especially long time. "Is this a reload?"

"Yeah." They had that reloading press at Fun Kingdom Shane had looted long ago, and they collected their spent brass casings. They'd run out of bullets a month ago, but Morgan, who used to be a welder in the old world, had found a way to melt down lead to make new bullets. They could strip plenty of lead from various construction materials in Fun Kingdom.

"What did you use for the powder?"

"We looted cannisters of gun powder." They were almost out of that now, though. They'd have to start making their own black powder from charcoal (they had plenty for the grills), saltpepper, and sulfur (they had that from the garden center they looted).

"Well, it looks good, but if this explodes on anyone, trust me, I'll have the Council track you down and you're paying for it."

"Ain't gonna explode on no one."

She continued examining the rounds, taking longer with the reloads than the boxed ammo. Finally, she wrote something on a slip of paper. "You take this to the accountant on duty at the podium, and he'll put the points on your account. When you buy something, you'll get another slip. Before you leave the marketplace, take all your purchase slips to the accountant, and he'll deduct the points from your account."

That seemed like a system that would make it easy to steal. They were on the honor system in Fun Kingdom, more or less, with their clipboard inventory system, but they did keep the storehouse locked most of the time. And the people at Fun Kingdom seemed less shifty than a lot of the people here, on average. "People ever just buy shit and not take the slips to the accountant?"

The woman motioned to an armed guard whose eyes were flitting around the marketplace floor like a Secret Service agent assessing threats. "There are always eyes on you. People have tried, but, trust me, you don't want to risk that. Fines, labor. And after strike three? You're out with the gnashers."

"Gnashers," Daryl said. "That what you call 'em here?"

"We call them all sorts of things, depending where we started out before we found these walls."

He looked at the slip of paper she had handed him, which read: -4P S#14. "Hell's all this mean?"

"Negative four points. Fourteen is my seller number so the accountant can deduct the purchase from my account. The accountant will then add the four points to your account."

"Sign says one point per three rounds for nine millimineter. This paper should say 5P."

"It's good to know you can divide." The woman smiled. "But, honey, that's the price to buy from me, not to sell to me. I've got to make a profit."

Daryl looked her over warily. He wasn't sure if he was being scammed, or if that's how they operated here.

"Take it or leave it," she told him.

"Take it," he muttered.

He walked over to the currently on-duty accountant, who sat behind a podium at his ledger. He was not an elderly man (he couldn't be more than 45), but he was missing the bottom half of his left arm (it ended in a stub). Daryl handed the man the slip. "Gotta open a new account. Daryl Dixon."

"Any relation to Carol Dixon?" the accountant asked.

"She's m' wife."

"Just curious. She opened an account a little while ago."

Daryl looked around the marketplace but didn't see Carol.

The accountant paged back in his ledger, murmuring. "D…D…D…Ah, here we go."

"What she sell and buy?" Daryl asked.

"That's confidential information. We keep all sales and purchases private, here." The man glanced toward the prostitute's table. "Your wife won't know what you buy, even if she asks me, I assure you. All accountants maintain strict confidence."

"Ain't why I asked," Daryl said thinly.

"Your four points are recorded," the accountant said, lowering his pen. He drew a line through the writing on the slip of paper and then tossed it in a trashcan beside his podium. "Happy shopping. Market closes at 6 PM today. Make sure you bring me any purchase slips before then."

Daryl headed past a table that was selling "white lightening," whiskey distilled from corn—it wasn't just ethanol they were producing in that distillery, he supposed, though he wondered if it didn't taste a bit like ethanol. No wonder Gavin kept the good, old world whiskey in bottles up in his cupboards—it must be worth a fortune compared to that shit. He moved on past another table selling cans of soda and bottles of water. He wonder why anyone would buy a bottle of water when there was a big watercooler in the marketplace and that water was provided to anyone in the camp for free (with a sign that said, "no containers larger than 32 ounces," thought it didn't say how often you could fill up). People had been stupid enough to waste money on bottled water in the old world, but in this one? At any rate, he wasn't wasting any points at a drink table.

He paused at a table selling corn muffins. "Made with imported Hilltop cow's milk and homegrown Sanctuary corn and eggs," the woman behind the table told him. "Just one point per muffin."

"Think 'bout it," Daryl murmured before walking on. He passed a table selling rifles, knives, bow strings, arrows, spears, and bolts, manned by an old man with long, black hair and wrinkly brown skin. He looked like he might be three-quarters Native American. The rifles and knives were all well beyond Daryl's four-point price range, but he bought himself some crossbow strings and two new bolts for a mere one point, and got his slip of paper: 1P, 1 pk cb strings, 2 bolts. S#18.

The strings he slipped in a pocket of his pants and the bolts he slid into the quiver on his crossbow before returning it to his shoulder. "Why so cheap?"

"Supply and demand. Almost no one owns a crossbow. We get some people with compound bows or longbows from the Kingdom and Hilltop, but I only know one person in the whole Alliance who has a crossbow. Besides you. I haven't seen you before."

"Just vistin'," Daryl said.

"From Georgia, the winds say. Anyway, crossbows are hard to reload quickly. It's a fairly impractical weapon for fighting biters, don't you think?"

"Good for huntin'," Daryl murmured. "And I killed my share of walkers with this one."

"Walkers?" The man laughed. "Makes them sound tame."

Daryl moved on past a table selling hiking and work boots and brass-studded leather sleeves. "You look like a supply runner!" the woman behind the table called to him. "You'll love these armored sleeves! Keep the biters from sinking their teeth in!"

"No thanks," he said. "My wife already thought of that. Got some she made me already." Daryl found he liked saying my wife. It wasn't something he got to go around Fun Kingdom saying.

He tried to scurry quickly past the prostitute's table, but he didn't make it without a "Hey, handsome!" call out. "You look like you could use some company."

He held up his hand and pointed to the tattoo of Carol's name around his wedding ring finger and moved on before she could say anything else. The next table was books, comic books, and DVDs. He paused because there was a Dungeons & Dragons hardcover book on there, a thick one, and not one he'd ever seen Sophia paging through, a complet guide to monsters. "Interested?" the elderly woman behind the table asked. "Any three books for a point."

"Take this one." He tucked the D&D book under his arm with the manual and suddenly wished he had his pack.

"You can take two more."

"Have my wife pick out a couple later." He got to say my wife again. "Name's Carol. If she comes by, let 'er?"

"Will do," the woman said before handing him his slip which read, 1P, 3 books, S#21.

He stopped by the cooler next, set the books atop it, fulled his canteen with free water-bottled water, my ass—took a swig, clipped it back to his belt, tucked the books back under his arm, and then moved on to a table labeled taco stand.

"Corn tortillas with scrambled egg," the woman behind the stand said as she dished some eggs from an electric frying pan plugged into a battery pack onto an open tortilla on a plate, "a sprinkling of goat cheese," she sprinkled maybe half an ounce of lumpy cheese atop it, "and scallions from the rooftop garden." She added a lot of those. "One per point."

He couldn't say no, not the way his stomach was growling. He devoured his taco right there and then licked his fingers before he turned and began to head past the cafeteria tables to the stands on the other side. As he was headed that way, he was accosted by a boy who couldn't be more than ten, holding up a long-stem red rose. "Flower for your lady, mister?" the boy asked. "Flower for your lady? Just one point. Bet you'll get laid tonight!"

"Y'all get to keep the points you make here?" he asked, still not quite sure how this all worked.

"Depends," the boy answered, "whether it's our job to distribute the communal wares through the marketplace or if we're freelancing with our own inventory. If we're Sanctuary distributors, we get paid hourly in points for our work, just like anyone working any job, and the price is just a way of rationing. If we're freelancers…we get to keep it all, less what our inventory costs us to acquire and the points we have to pay for the seller's permit."

"Seller's permit?" Daryl asked.

"Goddamn bureaucracy," the kid cursed. "But I guess it's better than a hot iron to the face."

Daryl had heard the phrase better than a stick in the eye when he was growing up, but better than a hot iron to the face was new to him. It must be a local expression, though, because he'd already heard it twice today.

"So…rose for your lady?" the kid repeated. "It's my very last one. They're popping off faster than Negan in a harem!"

Daryl wondered if the kid even knew what that expression meant, other than "selling fast." He found it hard to believe the boy was doing a good business in roses. One point was a heck of a lot for something you couldn't eat or use, but he had to admire the kid's hustle. "Hell, yeah, sure, take one."

The kid smiled wide. He gave Daryl the rose and a slip of paper saying 1P, rose, T#16 and then ran off, now empty handed. Daryl tucked the stemp of the rose through a beltloop for now. Licking his fingers clean from the taco, he walked over to the accountant and handed the man his slips. Whiile the man was zeroing out his account, he looked over his shoulder and noticed Carol sitting at the farthest cafeteria table. He hadn't seen her before because some people had been standing behind her. But there she was, sitting across from a man and a woman and chatting away.

Daryl made his way over and found her drinking from her canteen and eating cornfritters with a dusting of scallions and a dollop of sour cream on top. He hadn't seen the cornfritters.

She looked up at him when he approached and said, "This is my husband, Daryl. Daryl, this is Gina and Gordon."

Daryl grunted a greeting, slid the rose out of his beltloops, lay it by her plate, and sat down.

"You actually bought the rose?" Gordon asked. "Well, they say there's a sucker born every minute."

"Too bad you didn't buy me one," Gina siad. "After all, the boy promises it'll mean you get laid."

Gordon blinked. He lauhged with excited embarassment. "Maybe I'll go get one."

"Too late," Daryl told him. "Bought the last one."

He set his books down on the table. Carol glanced at them. "Aw. You thought of Sophia."

"Mhm. And the lady owes me two more, so pick out what ya want."

"But looks like you have one other," Carol said.

"Manual. Gotta return it to the library tomorrow."

"Gina and Gordon are on the Sanctuary Council," Carol told him.

Of course Carol would find out who was on the council and befriend them, Daryl thought. Wheel's always turning. And it turned out they were talking about a trading post where the communities sometimes met up, and about maybe Fun Kingdom coming to that post once every four to six weeks. Daryl kept his mouth shut and let her work her magic. He opened his mechanic's manual and read while they chatted away, until the market place was almost closing, and Gordon and Gina said their goodbyes, and Carol went and picked out her two books.

Then Daryl and Carol made their way back to the apartment. Not having anything else to do, they settled on the couch and watched the first Police Academy movie, or rather Carol watched it while Daryl continued to read his motrocycle manual. Carol laughed out loud more than few times.

Daryl looked up from his book on the fourth laugh. "You really do like this," he said with disbelief.

"What's not to like? It's funny."

When the first movie was over, and Carol put in Police Academy II, Daryl shut his book at and slung his arm around her. She settled her head on his shoulder. They were halfway through it when Gavin finally came in, looking exhausted.

"We'll get out of your hair," Carol insisted, standing from the couch. "So you can rest."

"Sit," Gavin insisted. "Finish your movie. I need a drink." He pulled a bottle of Wild Turkey 101 down from the high cabinet and offered them each a pour, which Carol declined and Daryl accepted. Gavin handed Daryl a glass and then sat himself down at his little kitchen table. He rubbed his eyes.

"Any success recruiting soldiers?" Carol asked.

"Laura volunteered, but I need her in charge here while I'm gone. Darren wants to go, but the council only authorized me to pay 10 points per mercenary, and he wants 12." Gavin sighed. "So I promised him two of mine. You've met Darren, haven't you, Daryl?"

"Unfortunately," Daryl muttered and sipped his whiskey.

"Why unfortunately?" Carol asked.

"Asshole insulted you. Then he complimented yer ass."

Carol chuckled. "And which pissed you off the most?"

"Ain't sure."

"Well, he's a good shot anyway," Gavin said. "Alden turned me down. DJ agreed to go. So I've got two soldiers. They'll go with us on to Alexandria in the morning. We'll stay a night there, recruit, and then head back to Shirewilt the next morning, help shore up the defenses."

"And when do we get our share of the loot?" Daryl asked. "From Shellman's?"

"Alden will drive the military truck back to Shirewilt after we've secured the place. I trust him. Someone will bring down my pick-up and trailer from the Kingdom, and we'll sort it all out before you head back to Fun Kingdom."

"Thanks for the whiskey," Daryl told him. "You're all right."

"Am I?" Gavin asked.

"It's a high compliment coming from my husband, trust me," Carol said. She put a hand on his knee and squeezed. "Come on, Pookie, really, let's let Gavin get some sleep."

Daryl drained the last of the whiskey, rose, and put the glass in the tiny silver kitchen sink. Gavin was already crawling onto the couch when he followed Carol into the bedroom. The man didn't even take off his boots.