Chapter 3: Assault on Bartertown
During the siege of the aquifer, a convoy was seen heading towards the horizon and a team was sent out under parlay to trade for more supplies to restock Moore's horde. The main driver said he can't part with much but he gave as much as he could, although he didn't know he was helping nefarious forces. Upon further inquiry, he casually reveals that he got his wares at Bartertown and directs Joe to this mythical oasis, a town which used to be a real cesspool of decadence and lawlessness but over the past decade it had grown into a burgeoning epicenter of trade and commerce. After the aquifer became the Citadel thanks to this ray of hope, Joe knew he must maintain a trade relationship with them until it was time to add it to his growing empire. Maybe there would be a way to make it a mutual agreement, he wasn't just a common criminal looking for a cheap high after all. If they would pledge their loyalty to him and agree to be a partner rather than an adversary, they will grow together and become a force to be reckoned with in the wasteland, unable to be stopped by the petty gangs and warlords who couldn't think further ahead than a day or two at a time. If they resisted, that will lead both parties to ruin even if it takes many, many years to catch up with them.
As Colonel Joe Moore stood on the balcony of the aquifer's main tower, he knew this was just a step forward in a larger campaign. It was just a step forward towards building an empire that would last beyond his own life so that the next generations born into his horde might have something to help them get started. He knew this was no time to sit back and congratulate himself for a job well done, for the problem of Bartertown still sat uneasily in the back of his mind. He had to get steady access to that oil refinery and the woman who ran the place didn't understand his unusually large need for guzzoline, he had reserves to maintain and it was distracting to continually refuel there instead of in his own domain thanks to those infernal laws she had on the books, didn't she understand he was trying to rebuild the world? Didn't she understand he was offering her the same access to his water supplies? Everyone raved about the quality of Bartertown's water without ever realizing it was Joe Moore who made that possible, it was the Citadel itself which should be thanked for this rare and invaluable commodity.
His troops had always been so loyal to him, serving him well in the Oil and Water Wars which were an initial attempt to quell the gangs' control over vital resources, staying banded together in pockets which he pieced together after the collapse to form his first horde. There were so many casualties during the siege, he wondered how and where he would find more soldiers with such an undying fielty towards him. Even if extreme circumstances forced him to do something psychopathic like indoctrinate new warriors from a very young age, it would never be a substitute for the camaraderie and loyalty of those who fought together through several wars. He knew the ruse to chivy the oil refinery out of Aunty Entity's hands presented innumerable problems and would have to be a good one. He couldn't afford to go through another siege unless he wanted to risk winding up as a beggar like the rest of those stranded in the wasteland. One wrong move would spell total failure for him since he was outmanned and outgunned. If he waited to rebuild his army, she might grow hers at the same rate and then where will he be? A few years older and no closer to his goal than before. He needed unfettered access to fresh guzzoline at any time of day or night because these gangs were starting to figure him out, larger and more permanent reserves would have to be constructed at the aquifer if he wanted to avoid running out of fuel in the middle of a battle with a rival gang but Aunty Entity didn't believe in credit, she wanted her payments upfront and in full which left Joe in a real bind on several occasions because how was he any better than the roving gangs if he didn't have his own supply of fuel? It doesn't matter how brilliant your strategy is if you can't follow through with your plan.
He had to build a proper structure of power within his new Citadel if he wanted a chance at succeeding. You can't conquer and govern at the same time, and it seemed he was always getting swept off by some new conquest or rushing off to quell a rival gang whose leader had become too brazen. Was he being consumed by the wasteland, or taming it? Time off didn't exist on this side of the apocalypse, he couldn't just take a break to get his head straight. Empathy will get you killed in a second out here. Those who also fantasized about the security of living in a tower above an aquifer would sense it right away if he averted his gaze, even for a brief moment, so asserting his dominance at all times was the only way forward. He tried to bargain, he tried to be reasonable, he tried to find trade compromises that benefited everyone, but he was beginning to believe there was no possible way to negotiate with the maniacs who turned into vagrant criminals in the absence of law and order. Mercy had become an obsolete concept.
It was the same thing he said to his Generals before the last of the gangs finally slipped through the fingers into the immeasurable emptiness of the outback, why had it taken so long to remember his own dogma? His old lieutenant wouldn't have let him lose his touch, sometimes all he could see was that bullet smashing through her skull as the defeated former tenants took a few last crack shots at the aquifer out of spite as they left the area for good. She had so many ideas about how a post-governmental society might function and they were all thoroughly planned, he was the conquerer and she was the governor because no one could do both of those things at once. When the bullet took her life, her ideas went with it and all he had left was her notes which were written down in a tattered leather notebook but her shorthand notation was confusingly abrupt with entire paragraphs reduced a few words at most. That was the first time in his life that Joe knew true primal rage, after the siege ended the survivors negotiated their surrender of the fortress under the condition that they would be untouched if they left the area and sought a new place to live but as far as the Colonel was concerned, that contract was now null and void so he took his warboys and laid waste to them as they were slogging towards the horizon. They took his Queen of the Wasteland so he took everything from the man who fired the shots that would ring in Joe's ears for eternity, and he strung him up in a cage in the hospital wing to be milked for blood until his dying day, hanging there naked like an animal, an example for all to see.
It had been four hundred days since the Citadel was conquered and the Colonel was now known as the Immortal Man among his men and they had even started painting themselves to mimic his appearance in the absence of proper uniforms, tattooing and scarring their bodies with car parts in the absence of proper religions. He was quite flattered and sometimes pondered the long term implications of such behaviors, but never too deeply for they were loyal which was invaluable so he embraced his new image to the point where his chief mechanic gifted him a new breathing apparatus to wear; a more efficient respirator with a double recirculating air pump and horse teeth on the mask to give him a more aggressive appearance. Where did anyone find horse teeth in the first place? Anyways, this one had drastically improved his breathing issues which were caused by prolonged exposure to the filthy air of the wasteland, who knows what was in that stuff but the military warned everyone about the long term effects during the initial aftermath of the collapse, officers and soldiers in gas-masks had become a common sight among those were tasked with attempting to put an end to the civil unrest.
Sneaking heavy weaponry into a peaceful Bartertown would've been extraordinarily difficult given how tightly such things were regulated in Aunty's legal paradise, so they did things the old fashioned way: they turned people one by one until there were enough men on the inside who believed in the Immortan's cause to help them stage a coup. The Colonel felt slightly guilty as he and his war party made their way into Aunty Entity's home and held her at gunpoint, but he insisted this was her fault. She could've been his partner instead of his adversary, fairness of trade be damned he had offered her a chance to rebuild much more than her town. She could only stand there in tears, in total disbelief that someone could be so calloused. His goals were for the future and he wanted them today, she spent the last good years of her life helping so many survivors come back from the brink of hopelessness and self-destruction, would he really take all that away just for unlimited access to guzzoline? Didn't he see how he tore down what he sought to build by killing her? The Citadel be damned, if he was that worried about losing it she promised him all the help he needed if anyone ever launched an assault on his precious fortress.
But Joe wasn't having any of it. "Don't you remember all the times I offered unlimited water in trade for unlimited guzzoline? Wasn't that enough for you? That offer wasn't gallon for gallon, if you needed a tanker and I needed a quart I would approve it. How many times will I come within an inch of losing a critical skirmish because my supplies run low? Don't you realize there are other hordes out there who plot to overthrow your reign in much more violent ways than this? If they haven't come by now, they'll be coming soon. Things have only become more and more violent out there since you've been cooped up inside these walls, the rule of law and order won't protect you forever." None of that was enough. She had rebuked every offer he'd made in the past to combine their authority to rebuild the world, always playing the righteous mother figure who was more concerned about enforcing pre-cataclysm laws than whether her own people had enough to eat. Didn't she realize how many hordes had been stopped in their tracks before they could reach Bartertown or the Aquifer? Did she really think her laws were the only thing stopping those criminals? She wasn't the one going deep into the desolation only to uncover a raging nest of hornets waiting to unleash itself on the next unsuspecting victim. Where would Bartertown be without fresh, clean water from the Citadel? Had she even told anyone that Joe Moore should get the credit for this luxury, or did they assume water welled up right next to the dirty, unrefined crude oil?
"Lies! she screamed, "You lie straight through your oversized horse teeth! You know we have to save some of our food for the winter months, or times when trade is thin, how dare you tell my most trusted friends that I live like a queen while everyone else has to scrounge for what they have. How dare you tell people I've known since they were children that I keep them at arms length because I don't like them when I'm simply giving them the jobs they're good at! As if you can afford to lose my partnership after all we've done to rebuild this part of the world." But the damage was done, and all she could do was take Joe's offer to get in the car he'd prepared for her and drive away into the night; forever banished from her own creation, never to see any of those people again.
Thus, Bartertown became Gastown under the harshest of circumstances and it's appearance changed overnight. Tribes living in the periphery of the settlement disbanded and vanished without a trace to avoid the tumultuous fallout of such a vicious change in authority. The once-vibrant and uplifting skyline took on a dark, ominous appearance, and even in the daytime it looked like some Dickensian nightmare of grease, smoke, and filth. It was no longer a shining symbol of hope in the desert, but a haunting blotch of ruthlessness in the wasteland.