Achoo!
The sneeze erupted from Michael with a violence that startled even him, a sharp, percussive sound in the dry, still air of the Wasteland morning. He had no way of knowing its origin, no clue that miles away, in the meager shade of a skeletal Joshua tree, a desperate scavenger named Richard was even now clutching his burning throat, whispering what he believed to be his final words to his wife—a plea for her to remarry well, to care for their grey-eyed daughter, Annie. The universe, it seemed, occasionally registered a protest, however faint.
Mystified, Michael pulled his thin cotton shirt tighter around his shoulders—a futile gesture against a chill that wasn't in the air, but perhaps in the fabric of this broken world. He dismissed the oddity and refocused on the immediate, chaotic task: navigating the Wuling Sunshine through the suddenly teeming, dusty artery that was Cinder Town's main street.
He had anticipated a reaction. In a world where the internal combustion engine was a myth preserved in rust and folk memory, the arrival of a functioning, four-wheeled vehicle was bound to cause a stir. He had envisioned a certain awed respect, a dignified parting of the crowd. The reality was several degrees of magnitude more primal.
His initial entry had been met by a swarm of feral, half-naked children, their eyes like saucers in grimy faces, darting alongside the groaning van, their fingers daring to brush its dusty flanks. A few experimental blasts of the horn—a sound that had likely not been heard here in decades—acted like a thunderclap. The entire settlement, all three hundred-odd souls, seemed to boil out of their hovels and lean-tos, converging on the street with a noise that was half-terror, half-euphoric celebration. The road vanished under a press of bodies, a mosaic of astonished, sun-leathered faces, reaching hands, and a cacophony of shouts. The spectacle dwarfed any reaction a supercar might have garnered in his old life. This wasn't admiration for wealth; it was the shock of the impossible made manifest.
Salvation arrived in the form of a bellow that cut through the din. John the Minotaur, a island of bristling, horned authority, bulled his way through the throng, a dozen of his newly-minted guards at his heels. They were a motley, intimidating crew, armed with an assortment of sharpened rebar and nail-studded clubs. With a combination of roared commands and not-so-gentle shoves, they carved a path to the three-story building, allowing Michael to guide the wheezing Wuling into the relative sanctuary of the rear courtyard. A cordon was swiftly established, John's men forming a ragged wall to keep the buzzing crowd of onlookers at bay.
"My Lord! You return!" John boomed, his voice thick with relief and a feverish curiosity. His single eye kept darting past Michael to the van's opaque, dust-caked windows, as if trying to x-ray the contents. The promise of the "high-tier Vault" hung in the air, a tangible pressure. The quality of their future, of the meat in their stew and the strength in their walls, might just be sitting in that strange metal box.
Michael couldn't help a weary grin. "Stop trying to peek, you great lump. It's all good, I promise." His gaze then swept over John's new recruits, the men holding the line. His smile faded slightly. They were a sorry-looking battalion. Mostly dark-skinned men, with a few pale faces and hybrid features mixed in, all sharing the same stark, anatomical definition of prolonged hunger—large frames over which skin was stretched taut as parchment over bone. They stood as straight as they could, clutching their makeshift spears, trying to project a martial vigor that their trembling limbs and hollow cheeks betrayed. "These are the… strongest?" Michael asked, unable to keep a note of doubt from his voice.
John's shoulders slumped a fraction. "The strongest with families in the town, as you ordered, Master. This is what's left. The pick of the scrap-heap." The admission was grim. The Wasteland had winnowed its population ruthlessly; these were the survivors, not the champions.
Michael sighed, accepting the reality. The raw material was poor, but it was what he had. With full bellies and a few weeks of peace, they might yet resemble soldiers. His eyes traveled over their uniform state of undress—loincloths, tattered shorts, or strips of cloth wrapped around hips. A ridiculous, yet persistent thought emerged: they needed uniforms. Something to bind them together, to lend a shred of legitimacy. Cheap, surplus camouflage from an army-navy store would do. Durable, cheap, and it would look the part.
His sartorial musings were interrupted by a dual assault of sound and scent. "Lord Harry Potter!" Two voices, one a low, husky purr, the other a silvery chime, cut through the background noise. Lynda and Faye emerged from the tavern's back door, moving towards him with a speed and directness that felt both predatory and affectionate. Lynda the Wolfkin, her long legs eating up the ground, and Faye the Foxkin, her steps a light, dancing patter. They descended upon him, each claiming an arm, pressing close.
And here was the second surprise of the morning: they smelled… better. Not good, by any civilized standard, but the eye-watering pungency of old sweat and infection had receded, replaced by the simpler, almost clean scent of sun-warmed skin and, faintly, of the coarse, lye-based soap he'd left behind. The two buckets of water had been put to use. The effect was transformative. The feel of Lynda's firm, muscular arm and Faye's slender one looped through his was no longer a test of endurance, but a genuine, disconcerting pleasure.
"And what have you brought your loyal handmaidens, great Lord?" Faye murmured, her vulpine face tilted up to his, amber eyes alight with playful avarice.
Reaching into a pocket of his cargo pants, Michael produced two cellophane-wrapped lollipops, the kind handed out at bank openings. "For my finest attendants," he announced, adopting a lordly tone. "Sweets. The pinnacle of my people's confectionery arts. You must savor them. Slowly. Let them dissolve on the tongue." He demonstrated a slow, deliberate lick of the air.
The girls took the proffered treats with reverent awe, peeling the wrappers with exquisite care. Soon, they were following his instruction, their pink tongues tentatively exploring the glossy, red spheres. The sight was, Michael had to admit, strangely captivating. Eat up, he thought, a bizarre, paternal-protective impulse warring with another, more baseline instinct. Grow up fast.
Then Lynda shifted, the movement pressing her against him, and the cognitive dissonance returned with a sickening lurch. The body under the patched tunic was decidedly notthat of a child. The contradiction—the youthful face, the adult curves, the ancient eyes in Lynda's case—was a moral quicksand. He gently extracted his arms, the gesture feeling clumsy. "Right. To work," he said, his voice slightly strangled.
The unloading of the Wuling became a public ceremony for the inner circle. As boxes and sacks, cans and tools were hauled out into the dusty courtyard, Michael stood as quartermaster and chief engineer.
"Old Gimpy," he ordered, pointing to the four large plastic containers. "Engine oil. Lubricating grease. Take two men, a can of diesel, and bring that Sherman home." The old man's eyes, usually shifty and calculating, went wide and still as he examined the containers. The oils were clear, golden, untainted by the murky separation or gritty sediment that plagued even the best-preserved pre-Collapse stocks. This wasn't salvage. This was new. The knowledge flashed in his eyes, a dangerous, illuminating spark, and then was carefully banked. He simply nodded, his voice grave. "It will be done, Lord."
Michael continued, gesturing to the pile of picks, shovels, and crowbars. "These stay here. We're digging. Four new wells. The current supply is a sick joke. I want this town to have enough water that a man—or woman—" he added with a glance at the now-sucking-intently girls, "can stand under a bucket and wash properly more than once in a blue moon."
The silence that followed this pronouncement was deeper and heavier than any that had come before. It was the silence of a profound, almost heretical idea being absorbed. John was the first to break it, his voice hushed. "Lord… the work… the water table… the sheer labor… it's… it's not done. Not here."
Michael looked at their faces—not just John's, but the guards', the women's, even Old Gimpy's, who had paused in his oil-reverie. He saw not disbelief, but a kind of terrified hope, as if he'd suggested they build a staircase to the moon. The simple, civilized act of bathing was, in this context, a revolutionary, almost insane ambition.
"I don't care if it's never been done," Michael said, his voice low but carrying a new, unshakeable steel. The memory of filtered wash-water, of Faye's desperate gratitude for his slops, of the general, grinding grime of existence here, fuelled him. "I'm tired of the stink. I'm tired of the dust. We dig. If we need more hands, we hire from the town. If we need more food to feed those hands, I'll get it. But we dig."
He had said the magic word again. Wash. Bathe. It hung in the air, a shimmering mirage made suddenly, improbably solid by the will of the strange man with the magic door and the van. They had dreamed of food, of safety, of a few extra bottle caps. They had never dared dream of cleanlinessas a policy.
John's bovine face worked. He looked at the poor, sharpened stakes his men held, at the parched earth, then back at Michael. The insane ambition was contagious. He drew himself up, the decision settling on him like a mantle. "Then we dig, my Lord," he growled, the words a vow. "By your command, we dig."
The others said nothing. But in their eyes, the terrified hope had ignited into a hard, clear flame. The great work, the impossible, luxurious, glorious work, had begun.