Welcome to chapter two of The Return!
Disclaimer: All intellectual properties are copyrighted by their respective owners. I own nothing other than my OCs.
Alicia had initially only seen the aftermath in photographs, archived newsreels, and documentaries. Since returning, the apartment complex had been renewed and reconstructed as a luxury apartment building called The Elexan 1400 West. Before the war, it was still a residential structure, its appearance having the effect of a maximum-security penitentiary, with its tall, imposing brutalist style, emotionally oppressive, in contrast to the sleek modernity of glass and concrete that now stood before her years later.
The Lylat Wars claimed the lives of many, an uncountable number, leaving devastation on both sides. The Venomian side took much of the impact, so much so that the Cornerian government started a Lylat-wide immigration program to integrate migrants and refugees from the war-torn planets into the Cornerian system. Somewhat of a lukewarm apology for the death, destruction, and destitution left behind, a small bandage to a bigger, hemorrhaging issue.
Bundled in her trench coat, Alicia woke up the screen to her phone, seeing that it was just minutes before 0600. Tucking the device away, she rubbed her hands together, blowing warm air on them to heat them up. She and her production crew stood outside of cafFine, a chain coffee shop, one of the first of this corporation to come to Venom in recent years. Carissa, Alicia's calico colleague and production manager said, "It's freezing," commenting on the cloud of steam as she exhaled heavily. "How is it scorching-hot during the day?"
"It's an arid region," Alicia explained. "Because there is no moisture in the air, heat is able to easily escape and dissipate at night when the day's radiant heat isn't cooking everything."
At the portico of the shopping and entertainment district, a convoy of four vehicles pulled up: three military jeeps, and a full-size Miuccia-Bauer passenger van, outfitted with ballistics-resistant glass, reinforced body panels, and modified for all-terrain capability with a raised ground clearance and big, chunky run flat tires to chew its way over any obstacle. A small emblem on the panel just in front of the rear wheels read: 4Tronic AWD. All four vehicles were branded with the private security emblems and logos of the company hired to be the nannies of Alicia, her colleagues, and the production team. In the leading jeep, several men suited and booted from head to toe in ABU camo and kevlar. As the entourage approached Alicia, she heard the thunderous footfalls of the men's boots, and her eyes rose to their camo cargo pants, their ballistics vests, and then Kellam's face behind a PPE visor affixed to a ballistics helmet. Alicia stared, a little bit starstruck.
Are you ready? Kellam asked.
As I'll ever be, Alicia answered.
Splendid.
They were going "beyond the wall," past the physical barrier of reinforced concrete and steel, into the outerlands of The Capitol city-state. The lands, still ravaged, war-torn, teeming with bandits and - it was literally martial law beyond the wall. Exiting The Capitol was a lot harder that Alicia anticipated. Considering the danger, as well as the security needed - it was not unlike an intersection between TSA at the air and spaceports when Alicia had to catch a flight, and the entrance/exit point to a heavily guarded military installment. In the modified Miuccia-Bauer Dasher van, Alicia watched absently as oncoming traffic in the multi lane thoroughfare languidly came out of the tunnel in The Wall from the checkpoint. Mostly military vehicles and freight trucks, with the occasional civilian passenger car, to Alicia's surprise and amusement. Meanwhile, their vehicle had been sitting in the same spot for almost thirty minutes.
Turning around to Kellam, she wanted to ask him something.
"Hey, Kellam? Dumb question."
"No such thing," he said.
"Kay…" Alicia nodded. "Um, why is the traffic so bad?"
Kellam had explained that since the end of the war and the start of all this urban development, there had been an influx of opportunity here, especially in The Capitol. The Powers That Be were not anticipating this population and economic boom, so the infrastructure, particularly the security checkpoints, were not prepared for population and traffic of this volume.
Alicia thought about that, nodding.
Looking down at her camera, her hiConic EnVision 6400, the model nomenclature denoting the number of megapixels. Turning it on, she waited the moment it took to boot up and began scrolling through the catalog of pictures stored in the device's internal memory.
Over the course of her stay on Venom, she had gotten well-acquainted with Kellam Zura, her security officer, and many of his subordinates. These men were wild—happy, violent, miserable, and magic all the same. They were filled with life. During her second week on Venom, she began with a peace-offering of sorts: she baked banana-nut cupcakes and snickerdoodles for them, and in exchange, she asked them if she could hang around with them and take photographs of them. She fancied herself a soccer mom, bringing treats and snacks to juvenile sporting events. However, this was not little league or a game of kickball. This was real life, their real lives, and they'd granted Alicia access to their world.
Alicia imposed a small, slight figure. At five feet, two inches, a buck-twenty, her bark was far worse than her bite. She could keep up with their witty banter and lewd locker room talk with her comebacks and comments as sharp as a tack. A little Canid woman in a churn of mostly Venomian testosterone, she didn't feel the least bit unsafe around them. They liked the idea of her taking pictures of them, documenting them, interviewing them. They wanted to see themselves in terms of their lives.
She met with them almost every weekend or off hours, on her own time. It became almost a custom that she brought some new, exotic pastry or baked treat. They've had pie before, but it never occurred to them that it could be bite-sized, flavored with mango-lime custard, and even had a fancy little name for them: tartlet. And while they snacked on her macarons and cheesecake bites, she would ask them who they are, what they were about, details of their lives, and take pictures of them as commemoration and proof of her memories with them.
As they spent time with Alicia, they would exchange wisdom and life force, and Alicia saw them for the talented, intelligent, and broken men they are, how the broken world they lived in made them that intelligent, talented, and broken. They wanted direction, they needed direction. Oftentimes, that direction had led them to Andross. Alicia was able to get these stories, these photos, this documentation, because they allowed her in their personal space. What was more important to Alicia, always, was the next picture, the story not yet told.
That is what she looked for. There is something about that isolation and their companionship, and that was a commentary on contemporary times as a collective.
It was a sense of normalcy to them. They all wanted to look nice, they all had hobbies or some kind of talent, they all had something about them that made them unique, and they all wanted love and comfort like the next person.
Then, it occurred to her.
The draconian freedom of who and what they are, their caliber and constitution, was something to ponder. She could only imagine how their harsh lives made them even harsher people. Alicia grew up a middle-class Cornerian girl in an affluent 2-parent home, with a dad who loved her enough to make sure she didn't leave the house in a skirt that was too short, and a mother who gifted her a hand-me-down KMW G3 luxury crossover when she became of driving age - all giving cause to how her mind became imaginative and dreamy, and how she ended up knowing how to color-coordinate.
They were all children at heart, Alicia included. But they never had the chance to understand those inner children. They had an astute grasp of death and loss, even love, and they had not the slightest clue that it was their job to create the noise that seemed to fascinate her. Meanwhile, they had no such luxury where they could sit back and even begin to fathom Alicia's enigma.
Once they reached the security checkpoint, they presented their IDs, passports, waivers, and then the gate security sent the convoy on their way into the outside world.
The change was instant.
Gone were The Capitol's beautiful and inviting parks and trees, replaced by decaying rubble of war vehicles, and buildings that may or may not have been everything from public buildings to private dwellings. The convoy had to drive slowly, as the pothole-laden road was replete with abandoned, rusting wrecks for them to drive around. It was a literal wasteland, not unlike the kind depicted in post-apocalyptic first-person shooters and other visual media. Staring out the bullet-proof glass, Alicia observed all of this, suddenly feeling cold.
She began to weep.
There was a small pop outside the vehicle, muffled by the van's sound tuning and structure. The Dasher van began to slow almost to a stop, along with the other vehicles in the convoy. Until it did stop, unnerving Kellam as well as the other security personnel. That then unnerved Alicia, her colleagues, and the production crew.
"What's happening?" Alicia wondered.
Instead of answering her, Kellam got intel on his earpiece, listening to the update instead of Alicia.
Kellam then mentioned, more to the other security detail in the van than Alicia and her crew, that the lead vehicle was slightly damaged by an IED. Something about it took out a tire, and they needed to stop to change it. At which point, the convoy had completely stopped. Alicia, seated next to the bulletproof glass, stared into the abyss of the wasteland. There wasn't any sunlight yet, so she stared into the darkness, hoping that the obscured rocks, wrecks, and hovels would reveal their mysteries on their own. Looking down at her camera, she set it to capture. Just as she was about to point and click, she looked back out, seeing a flare go up in the distance.
"Woah…" she said quietly, aiming, shutter clicking. She didn't turn off the flash.
"Alicia, what the hell are you doing?" Alicia whirled around at the sound of Kellam's hushed, urgent tone.
The heat drained from Alicia's face as Kellam stared like she'd just released a deadman's switch. "Uh–...I saw a flare go up."
"You…" his eyes grew wide. "Shit!" He spoke into his radio receiver: "Alright, Alpha Team, get ready."
Okay, like… What the fuck is happening? Alicia thought, heart starting to race. She looked back out the window, just as it exploded into a giant snowflake.
Alicia cried out in surprise, not waiting for Kellam to scream, "GET DOWN!" to do so. Alicia and the production team ducked and covered, the security detail layered themselves on top of them, voluntary meatshields for the noncombatants.
Projectiles rained down on the Dasher van, plinking, panging, ricocheting off of the vehicle's hardened structure. The sound of the bullets hitting the vehicle became thunderous, and very much like a crackling summer storm, it was over almost as quickly as it began.
"...Is it over?" Alicia whispered?
"No," the random security grunt answered huskily, practically squishing her with his almost eighteen stone worth of body weight and protective gear. "Stay quiet."
And Alicia did. For what felt like an eternity.
But it was only twelve seconds before there was a flash of light, a BOOM that shattered her eardrums, and suddenly all laws of physics were turned inside out.
Like a tumble dryer, the explosion sent everyone flying towards the Dasher's headliner, screaming bodies rolling around the interior, half the occupants, service detail, production crew being thrown through the splintered glass of the vehicle's greenhouse. Alicia couldn't call it at that point, but she thinks a fire extinguisher hit her in the head about four times, ping-ponging between a C-pillar and her temple. Once the van finished rolling, landing on its roof after being hit by a shell, everyone who was still alive or conscious began to scramble, either screaming bloody murder or shouting ineffectually to regain order. Alicia herself didn't realize she was screaming until she stopped, feeling her throat shredded and raspy, her lungs burning.
Whether he was dead from the neck up or dead as a doornail, she would never know because she heaved the grunt off of her and low-crawled out of the overturned vehicle behind several other survivors of the impact.
Gunfire.
Something exploded ten meters from her.
Maybe it was adrenaline, maybe she was touched by God, maybe it was the laws of chance. Whatever it was, every bullet and explosive seemed to have missed her as she ran, trying to duck behind a boulder, only to clumsily trip and fall behind it instead, skinning her left knee and the heels of her hands.
Something small and round landed next to her. Her nervous system realized what it was before her mind did, crying out and scrambling to her feet as an auto-response. Before she knew it, a flash of white sent her flying through the air…
…The white balance adjusted to a palatable level.
A lot has changed on Venom in the past several years. High rise apartments and offices touch the sky, many of them outfitted with construction cranes lifting I-beams into their places to erect the tall structures brick by brick, piece by piece. Viewfinder angled skyward at this instant; the buildings moved past like flying colors of blurred images.
Traffic cones, temporary bollards, bright orange signs marking the limited access thoroughfare with active construction. East-bound, only two thru-lanes, two more to open up in six months, widening the highway to accommodate The Capitol's influx of denizens.
In the compact passenger van, the Velox Carrier Link, the tire roar was picked up by the video camera's audio input, as was every bump and crevice in the pavement despite its fresh paving. The viewfinder shook and jiggled as it was handheld by its yet to be seen videographer.
The sky was a perfect delphinidin blue on the first day of this year's Venomian December. While the Carrier Link van maintained a moderate speed in the right lane, faster moving vehicles cruised past on the left, some occasionally flashing amber on their rights to get in front of the vehicle to board the slip lane for the next exit. Some hung out between the Carrier and a black sedan up ahead, which the camera seemed to be trained on most of the time.
The brake lights of the black Willard Majestic flashed a couple times as if the driver was slightly unsure, the red LED body lighting clusters glaring bright a couple times for a couple moments. Then the driver delegated what to do. The right turn signal began flashing red as it moved into the next slip lane for the upcoming exit. The Carrier followed suit; the out-of-shot dashboard's mechanical rhythmic ticking of the turn indicator heralded the vehicle's transition into the lane behind the black Willard. The tires thumped as they rolled over reflector buttons.
The slip lane turned into a slip road, the terrain lifting it towards an overpass. The Willard's LED brake light cluster glowed bright as it coasted towards the traffic circle at the end of the slip road before coming to a stop to let the thru traffic pass through the roundabout. The Carrier pulled up directly behind the black sedan, the leading brake lights disappearing below the front of the Carrier's hood; only the center brake light on the upper part of the decklid was visible.
Once a flatbed eighteen-wheeler circled around to the onramp across from them, the Willard's center high mount brake light blinked out as the car pulled away, taking the first exit of the traffic circle and continuing down the frontage road towards an intersection with a traffic control device. The Carrier followed suit.
Down the road at the intersection, the light was green, with the signal for the semi-protected left turn flashing yellow (which meant yield for oncoming traffic). There was none, so after engaging the left signal, the Willard did a customary tap on the brakes to slow a little as it entered the intersection for the left turn onto the avenue.
The compact passenger van followed the Majestic's lead through the left turn. The tailing vehicle followed the sedan down the thoroughfare, hemmed in by sky-scraping urban development, decorated with botanicals and parallel-parked cars. The Willard signaled left, as it came up to a break in the median for a U-turn, waiting for traffic to clear before pulling into the thru lanes.
Brake lights flashed bright, the Willard slowing to a stop to prepare to back into a parallel parking space. The Carrier Link van pulled around the sedan as it prepared to park to find its own space a little way up the block. As the compact passenger van prepared to park, the sightline of the camera's viewfinder dropped towards the footwell, a Vulpine man's red furred legs, canvas sneakered feet, the hem of his khaki cargo shorts. Inadvertently or not, the camera was clumsily pointed towards the driver, the Ursid man slightly out of view as his hefty, brown-furred hand and arm reached for the shift lever to select "park" and keys turned to kill the ignition and dropped into the cupholder.
"We all set?" The viewfinder caught a glimpse of the Ursid man as he looked towards the cameraperson and the viewfinder. There was a collection of affirmatives from the cameraperson, as well as the back seat. "Alright, cool," the Ursid man confirmed.
Seat belts unbuckled, doors opened, and the occupants filled out onto the sidewalk. The cameraperson took the lead, the audio input picking up the sounds of doors closing and several footsteps on the concrete sidewalk. Down the block, the occupants of the Willard Majestic - Alicia and Carissa - closed the doors to the black sedan after getting out of the car. Carissa spotted the approaching entourage, waving to greet them on their approach. Alicia waved too, smiling at the cameraperson, then at the camera. Dressed in a purple hoodie, ripped jeans, and nude-colored heels, she exuded comfort with a fierce factor. "This…" she turned around to glance behind her, the Elexan 1400 West on Baldwin Parkway, "...is where our journey began."
I will end this chapter here for right now, thank you for reading. Please leave a review, it lets me know I'm doing the right thing. Stay tuned for more!