CHAPTER FOUR: WATERING HOLE

The sun was at its apex and Quad was in sight. The town lay at the end of the road, just past a gray fortress—a checkpoint for the city watch. The stout fort was nowhere near as imposing as Argus's watchtower, which yielded a view of the land for miles around. But Lou knew better than to underestimate the building. Blockland was a strange place, and size didn't necessarily denote how dangerous something was. He would take no risks.

"Hello?" Lou shouted at the fort. "Anyone there?"

The fort was motionless for a moment. Then a face appeared in one of its windows. "Hey!" the face barked. "Don't move! Stay there!"

A door next to the road swung open, and four men armed with spears and pistols ran out of the fort in Lou's direction. They weren't pointing the weapons at him, but it scared him nonetheless.

"Whoa!" Lou backed away.

"Don't move!"

The armed men formed a circle around him. They scanned his body with their eyes, inspecting every inch.

"Are you scratched?" one of them asked.

"Scratched?"

"By a zombie. Are you?"

"No," said Lou. "No scratches."

"Alright. Looks like he's clean, boys." The men turned and started back for the fort, except for one, who remained next to Lou. "Sorry about that, stranger. We don't want to let any zombies in, or else the king will crack down again." He shrugged. "You know, gotta observe the formalities."

"Oh, right. Of course."

The man joined the rest of the soldiers and returned to the fort. Lou realized he still had Grant's sword on him, and that he could have made an attempt to defend himself. Obviously, in that situation, it was better to just comply and let the city watchmen check him for scratches. But in the future he might need to draw his weapon more quickly. It could be life or death.

He continued into Quad. It was a modest place, with dirt roads just like the countryside, and no buildings more than two stories tall. There were residences at the edge of the town, and a commercial district at the center. Most of the storefronts sold general goods, but some specialized in produce, and some specialized in construction materials. The construction shops intrigued Lou the most. Their inventory consisted of blocks, with different sections devoted to flats, rounds, and full bricks. They displayed particularly useful blocks in the windows to attract customers.

After some walking, Lou came to the town's only bar: the Watering Hole. It had dark blue exterior walls, interrupted only by vertical gray stripes where the windows sat. Inside he could see some red booths, televisions attached to the ceilings, and a bar. It was a familiar sight to him, one he took comfort in.

There were seven patrons and one bartender inside. Lou knew this because they all stared at him the moment he walked in. They were fascinated by his face—it was one they had never seen around here. Evidently Quad didn't get many tourists.

He stood still in the entryway until they moved back to their conversations. It was an awkward first impression, no doubt, but Lou tried not to let it bother him. He stepped into view of the TVs above the bar and saw they displayed a large white castle onscreen. The castle had a balcony, which a king and a princess stood on. The camera zoomed in on the princess, granting a wide view of her upper body. Someone in the bar whistled at her.

"Hey," came a voice from behind Lou. He turned and saw a man and a woman standing by one of the windows. The woman was waving him over. "You're not from here are you?"

"No," he said. "I'm new in town."

"Well welcome to Quad, stranger. I'm Nikki," she said, and pointed to the man next to her. "This is Provo. And you are?"

"Lou."

"Pleasure to meet you Lou. What brings you to our town?"

"Nothing really. I just wanted to get away from the zombies."

"Does that mean you're a farmer?" Farmers were the only people who had trouble with zombies. Towns had the city watch to protect them, which Lou discovered when he first entered Quad. Farmers, on the other hand, fended for themselves. They had no one, just themselves and whatever family was willing to help.

"No, but I lived with one for a day. It was enough to make me come here."

Nikki and Provo exchanged looks. They cracked up.

"That's funny," said Provo. "You're a funny guy. You think you'll be staying in Quad for very long?"

He shrugged. "I don't know."

"Well, it's not a bad place. The Empire doesn't show up out here, if you don't like it much." He gestured to the television. "What do you think of him anyway? The king."

Lou looked up at the screen. The king, who seemed to rule this land judging from Provo's comment, wore white shoulder pads and a cape. His torso was covered by a diagonal belt strap overtop silver scale mail. He was the personification of regality.

"He looks like a douche."

The two of them laughed. "Shit Lou, you really are funny. Let me buy you a drink." Provo looked past him and waved to the bartender. Nikki picked up the conversation.

"What do you think of his policies?"

"To be honest, I don't know anything about them."

"I bet you know something."

"Nope."

"Really? You don't know anything about the king?"

Lou shook his head.

"Well . . . damn. That might be for the better. Ignorance is bliss after all."

"Why? What's wrong with him?"

"You really don't know the stuff he's done?" Provo asked, handing him a drink. "What nation are you from?"

Lou lied, "This one."

"Well, let me clue you in. See those fancy guns on TV?"

He looked up and saw a unit of soldiers onscreen, armed with futuristic-looking guns.

"Yeah."

"They funded those weapons by taxing the farmers. The farmers, of all people."

"That's not even the worst thing the king has done," said Nikki. "A couple years back, some zombies totally invaded a town not far from here. The citizens were all boarded up in their homes. The city watch had to call the capital requesting help. But the king didn't send any troops because it would have been too costly. Can you believe that?"

"And then there's what he did to poor old Grant," Provo added.

"Grant?" Lou said. "What happened to Grant?"

"Well, one year he had trouble paying his taxes. I guess that's worth sending troops to take care of, because that's what the king did. He sent imperial guards to Grant's farm and executed one of the man's daughters to show everyone what happens when you don't pay the Empire. I guess it worked, since no one has missed their taxes since then, but hell."

Information in Lou's head connected. The night he stayed at Grant's home, he had gone upstairs and seen two pink doors. One belonged to Merriweather, but he didn't know who owned the other one, and didn't give it any thought at the time. But now he knew—Grant had another daughter, who was killed by what Lou now perceived as a tyrannical government.

"Well fuck the king," he said.

"A lot of people out here feel that way." Provo waved to the bartender for another round of drinks. "Can't say that in the core cities though. They'll think you're an insurgent and imprison you. Are you an insurgent?"

"No." He didn't even know insurgents existed in Blockland.

"Might wanna keep it that way. The monarchy sucks, but fighting against it is hopeless."

• • •

They got drunk as the night went on. It was to be expected, of course. They were a bunch of plastic blockheads in a bar—it was normal to Nikki and Provo, but the whole scene screamed Be carefree! to Lou. He didn't know when he would get home, but Blockland wasn't a horrible place, so he figured there was no harm in enjoying himself while here.

They were soon kicked out of the bar, not because it was closing time, but because they were just getting too noisy. Lou made his two new friends laugh loudly enough to disturb the other patrons, so the bartender removed them peacefully and they set off for a new destination: Provo and Nikki's house. The two lived together, but weren't very physical with one another at the bar, so Lou didn't fully understand if their relationship was romantic or platonic. But they had some killer music at their home, he knew that for sure. Provo called the song, an electronic dance tune, Stress. The three of them sat in chairs and sofas in the living room, still inebriated.

"You got any hobbies?" Nikki asked Lou.

"I used to paint."

"You don't anymore?"

"Well, I still do, but not for a few days. Don't know if I ever will again."

"Don't stop painting. That's a good talent to have. The ladies will love it." She looked at Provo. "He painted me stuff when we first met."

"She's right," he nodded. "None of it was good. It was all very bad, in fact."

"Oh, but I liked it all anyway. Because it was from you."

He grinned and humbly waved the kind words away. Nikki, with her uncertain feet testing out different spots on the floor, stood up. She walked over to Provo and gave him a sloppy kiss. The kissing evolved into them running up the stairs without warning Lou of their plans for the night.

So they were romantic partners, he decided.

Lou didn't like to snoop. But in his drunken mindset, he decided to open up a drawer beneath the room's television set and see what was inside. He discovered a map depicting all of Blockland, with broad swaths of land and ocean. It was a vast realm, with an immense desert, a frozen arctic, grasslands, forests, and a variety landforms he didn't understand how to interpret. The locations that puzzled him the most were labelled as the Sky Isles, the Undulo Wastes, and a sizeable chunk of the world was simply Darkness. Had he been sober, he may have been able to guess what these oddly named lands entailed. But he wasn't. His eyes were tripping over their own retinas in an attempt to stay focused.

He dozed off in an alcohol-fueled slumber. He would awake with a strong hangover.

• • •

"Lou," said Provo. He jostled him awake. Lou yawned.

"What time is it?"

"Time to get up. Morning's here."

Lou got to his feet. Stress was still playing from the nearby music brick, but Provo silenced it. Lou realized how much the music had been hurting his head. He was hung-over.

"Last night was fun," Provo said.

"It was. Where's Nikki?"

"Still sleeping." Provo stepped into the kitchen. "Can I get you coffee?"

"No, I need to get going."

He appeared in the doorway. "Where to?"

"The capital, I guess." It was the place on the map that stood out the most to Lou. The capital of the Chrome Empire, fittingly named Chrome Capital, was an unabated metropolis. It had shopping districts the size of Quad, and parks equivalent in size to forests back where Lou came from. And while the most advanced technology out here came in the form of televisions, he knew the soldiers in the capital had access to laser weapons. Who knew what other tech was available in the capital—perhaps a ticket back to Lou's home?

Provo frowned. "I get the feeling you're looking for something, Lou. Are you?"

"Sort of. It's more complex than that though. Hard to explain."

He nodded. "Whatever you're looking for, I think you'll find it."

"Thanks." Lou went to the front door. "Tell Nikki goodbye for me."

"I will."

Lou left after that, but minutes later there was a knock at the door. Provo answered it, expecting Lou to have forgotten something. But it wasn't him. It was a tax collector.

Provo forgot they were coming through this week.

"Hi there. Provo?"

"That's me."

"Good day to you. I'm here to collect your taxes to the Chrome Empire. Do you have them handy?"

He thought about his earnings from the past few weeks and wondered if he had enough to pay the tax man. He did not make much money from his job, and a lot of cash was spent on alcohol the night before. Provo swallowed. "I think I'm a little short."

• • •

Lou was starting for the north road out of town when he met Talia for the first time. Sometimes the most grand of friendships begin with an unremarkable encounter, and that held true when the two of them met. He with his blue T. rex shirt and black pants, she with her pink hoodie and jeans.

She didn't get his attention with a hello or a hey, like most people would have. She waved to him as they both stepped onto the same dirt road, the only dirt road leading in the direction of the capital. A wave had a special quality to it—a certain amiability that was literally beyond words.

And he waved back to her.

"Hi," she said when they matched strides.

"Hi. I'm Lou."

"I'm Talia. Where are you headed?"

"Chrome Capital."

"Really?"

"Yeah."

"Me too."

Lou smiled, shifting his gaze to the path ahead of them. The desert was not as harsh here as it was on the road to Quad. Grass was sprouting without the aid of people, albeit very meagerly. But it was a hint of what was to come.

"Why are you going to the capital?" he asked her.

"My parents were tired of me playing After School Special. They told me to either cut it out or leave." She smiled. "I love music."

"I love painting."

Quad grew more distant from them. But they did not notice.

"Why are you going to the capital?" she asked him.

"Not sure."

It was the start of something beautiful. The musician and the painter side by side on a journey to the unknown. They not only had their respective venues of expression at their disposal, but they also had each other. And it would be that way until the day one of them died. That day could be tomorrow, that day could be seventy years from now, but it would always be too soon.