Fiction

Growth

Chris Leave a comment

Arnold left his room in the dead of night, carefully stepping around every creaking board as he made his way downstairs. It was after midnight, his family was asleep, and Arnold had grown hungry.

He made himself a quick sandwich to hold him over while he pre-heated the oven. Once it beeped, and he’d finished the banana he’d taken after the last crumbs of the sandwich had disappeared, he popped a pair of pizzas in to cook.

While he waited the prescribed twelve minutes, he reflected on the constant gnawing hunger he’d felt while at school, where they wouldn’t even let him snack on the bags of pretzels he’d stuffed into his locker. He’d tried to sneak them into class by sticking them in his pockets, but the snap and crunch had given him away instantly. As had his classmates. Not even they understood what he was going through.

His parents got it, though, sort of. They didn’t like seeing him eat as much as he did, but they didn’t question his need for the extra food. He heard his dad saying something to his mom about “puberty” and him being a “growing boy.” He wasn’t sure why they thought that. He was eighteen, a senior in college. He’d gone through puberty years ago.

That being said, he was happy to let them assume whatever they wanted. They wouldn’t understand if he explained it, so he avoided it as much as they did. He hadn’t even seen a doctor about it. He didn’t want to end up in a lab.

So he ate two frozen pizzas, another banana, and then went to bed so the alien parasite growing inside him could get all the nutrients it needed. He was proud to be a dad, especially to such a special child.

This Sci-Fi Series is Consuming My Attention

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It is no secret that I love John Scalzi’s books. From the first time I found a copy of Old Man’s War to his recent release, The Consuming Fire, I have always thought of him as one of the best Sci-Fi writers, and not just because Old Man’s War shone like the sun in comparison to The Forever War when it comes to books that critique war in a space-centric futuristic setting. He’s one of two writer’s I’ve gotten to sign my laptop, a request reserved for my favorite writers of a genre I want to write in. All that bias acknowledged, I still think you should take it seriously when I say that the Interdependency Series is one of the best science-fiction series I’ve read in recent years.

The first book in the series, The Collapsing Empire, sets a complex, multi-faceted stage. We are introduced to The Interdependency, a series of Human colonies spread through space, connected by something called “The Flow” and ruled by an Emperox who is not only the leader of the government but also the head of the official religion. The Emperox we are introduced to, a younger woman named Cardenia Wu who assumed the throne somewhat unexpectedly after the death of her half-brother. There’s trouble brewing in the system of Human colonies, something vague her dying father only hints at before his death, and she must rise to the challenge of assuming a role she doesn’t really want and convincing the entire Interdependency to take her seriously. Helping her is the son of the scientist who spotted the problem, who is also an accomplished physicist in his own right and who has to escape his home planet and the noble family who wants to grab power during what they think will be a time of great vulnerability for the Interdependency and the Emperox.

All of the characters are incredible. The Emperox is a mixture of a confident, trained leader who has clearly been prepared for their role in society and a woman who never expected to be the head of anything but a few charities. She perfectly rides that line between fitting in with the part she must play in the Interdependency and wanting someone who sees her as a person instead of just as the Emperox. She is sympathetic to the reader, but her character is never dependent on that sympathy. The male scientist, Marce, is a giant nerd who studies The Flow, a series of wormholes that connect our realities to streams of altered space-time that allow ships with properly configured reality bubbles to travel great distances quickly along the flow of said streams, and who is clearly along for the ride when it comes to getting off-planet. He always seems a little bewildered, but never lost. He’s clearly intelligent and it shows as he quickly grasps whatever plans are laid around him, even when he’s clearly out of his element and just trying to keep up with the women who are trying to keep him alive.

Even the antagonists seem Human, showing us not just their plotting but also why they’re trying to grab power when they are. Most of them have a softer side, making it clear they are concerned for the survival of all Humans even if they’re taking this chance to enrich themselves while they try to safeguard Humanity. The only exception is the ring-leader, a woman named Nadashe Nohamapetan, who seems like a cackling villain from the beginning and whose behavior does nothing but reinforce that image of her. I want to believe there’s a chance at redemption for Nadashe coming (I haven’t reading The Consuming Fire yet), but all signs seem to point away from us seeing her as anything but an ambitious woman trying to grab power for herself and her family with little regard for the survival of Humanity.

She’s clearly a political expert, though, given the way she relentlessly positions herself to be in the right place for each step of her plan. Watching the political maneuverings is interesting since the whole system of government is a lot more difficult to influence that it is in more politically focused novels. For instance, in Katherine Addison’s The Goblin Emperor, the government is ruled by whoever has a claim and sits on the throne. In The Interdependency series, not just anyone can become the Emperox. Anyone can try to grab political and economic power, but the absolute rock-solid certainty of the house of Wu being both the head of the government and the head of the church means that power will almost always tip back to the Emperox in the end. Which means the politics in both The Collapsing Empire and The Consuming Fire are a little tame compared to what people generally look for, but the unique setup of the government of the Interdependency is more than enough to make them interesting.

The universe itself is well-developed in exactly the right ways. The specifics of everything aren’t incredibly important and Scalzi tends to brush past them quickly, instead focusing his time and attention on the important details. For instance, there is only one planet in the entire Interdependency on which Humans can live without some kind of habitat. Every other human settlement is either some kind of space station or hive, a bubble of habitability for Humanity to occupying in an otherwise hostile environment. This is important because it means there is only one place all of Humanity can survive for an extended period should something happened to the Interdependency’s linked economies is this planet, End. If the empire actually does collapse as the first book’s title suggests, then it is likely most of Humanity will die out except for those who live on End, a planet called such because it is as far from the center of the Interdependency as it is possible to get. All of the world details we get, from how The Flow works to how the various Human populations behave shows us how connected everything is and how reliant every single Human settlement is on being able to trade with all of the other settlements.

Like all good science-fiction, Scalzi’s books make a few statements about modern Humanity. The way all of the settlements rely on each other for long-term survival closely mirrors the situation we have on Earth, and how our survival as a whole is dependent on us working together in the modern age to fix the problems we’re all facing. The story has yet to show how The Interdependency works together to solve the problem, but I imagine it will fit Humanity’s current process all too well: argue for too long to do anything positive and then find someone to blame for the lack of results. Additionally, the deterioration of The Flow is a decent analogy for the environment and the way The Interdependency as a whole receives Marce’s scientific presentations completely matches the way most governments reacted to the initial findings about Global Warming. Some people take it seriously and a lot of people fear that it is true, but the idea of having to change on that big of a scale is so much more terrifying that people will cover their ears and yell so they can’t hear the truth. As someone who tries to fight that behavior in the real world, it is refreshing to find characters in a book who are trying to do the same thing, albeit in a more fantastic setting.

The entire series is worth reading and The Consuming Fire is even better than I hoped it would be. I would go into it more, but so much of The Collapsing Empire would be entirely spoiled if I did. You should definitely start there and enjoy the various twists and turns of the plot, even if it does pretty much match up with the title. The entire series is a solid chunk of science-fiction and I’m definitely putting this on my list of Christmas gifts for other people so I can spread the love of this series as far as possible. Let me know what you think once you’ve read it!

Coldheart and Iron: Part 34

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READ FROM THE BEGINNING

For the twentieth time that morning, I groaned and rubbed my face with my hands while muttering to myself, “I am too old to stay up all night.” I looked down at my desk, giving my eyes the time they needed to focus after opening, and felt another part of my spirit die when they finally focused on a sea of paperwork. All of the forms had gone through yesterday so now I had to fill out personnel sheets, submit additional funding requests for the budgets I had to set for their classes, file payment forms with the Wayfinder organization so the new trainees would have access to their money in whatever Enclave they stopped in, and start sending requests for forms from their doctors, their references, and their emergency contacts.

It was going to take all day and every single page had to have my signature on it. Will would be busy juggling schedules, talking to instructors, and preparing an expense report for a class that had graduated a few weeks ago so the Enclave knew we weren’t wasting their money. I could hire someone else to do it, but then I’d need to fill out reports for that person and would still need to review and sign all of these reports, meaning I’d do another two weeks of work to save myself four to six hours of work.

I shook my head, took a drink of water, and got to work. Fifteen minutes later, I tossed aside the paper and stood up. “Will, I’m going for a walk. Tell anyone who comes looking for me that I’ll be back at ten.”

“Sure thing, Captain Marshall.” Will nodded and I walked out of the building, into the crisp cold air. In the Enclave, you didn’t need to wear an insulated snowsuit everywhere. The metal walls hid the heat signatures lower down and they’d mostly dispersed by the time they rose above the walls, so it was relatively safe to go without. Most people wore them anyway, since it was so cold that being outside without heavy gear of some kind would be dangerous, but a brisk walk through the cold to wake up was exactly what I wanted.

I stayed out a little longer than was advisable, so I was shivering as I walked back into my office. I sat down at my desk, wrapped a blanket around my shoulders, and fumbled my way through paperwork until I warmed up again. Once I’d gotten so comfortable that I started to fall asleep again, I repeated my walk.

By five in the afternoon, I’d finished most of the paperwork and probably gotten myself sick from repeated exposure to the cold. I still had to sort the papers, stick them in large envelopes to go in the mail, and address the envelopes to their respective departments within the Enclave government, but that could wait until tomorrow. Will had left half an hour an hour earlier, so I took my time pulling on my snowsuit and locking up the office. We didn’t have any built-in lights or heaters to turn off, but there were shutters to close and a few blankets to fold up. Like most businesses except the ones deep underground, we just kept a bunch of blankets and extra jackets handy instead of trying to figure out how to properly insulate our office so we could heat it safely.

As I slowly made my way through the city–talking to the same people I had the day before, traveling the same route I had the day before, and thinking almost the same thoughts as I did the day before–I fought the urge to scream and pull out my hair. All of the people were friendly, everyone I passed basked in our little traditions formed over months of walking past the same places every day, and I genuinely wished the best for all of these people, but I couldn’t deny that there was a part of me that got excited by the idea of an attack on the Enclave. If nothing else, it would certainly break the monotony of my everyday life.

Once I passed out of the markets and workshops, I stopped at a bench for a few minutes to sort through the jumble of thoughts in my head. I was old and getting older. I’d passed my fiftieth birthday a couple of years ago and I was officially older than my father was the last time I saw him. I wouldn’t be able to keep Wayfinding forever and Camille had been right. We were the oldest active Wayfinders. At least Camille and I were. Natalie and Lucas had officially retired, though Lucas would once again take the lead when he came out of retirement and the only Wayfinder I knew of who was older than him was Natalie.

I couldn’t go a full night without sleep anymore. Even though I kept training and working out, I wasn’t as good as I used to be. There’s a difference between training for something and living it every day. I saw that difference every time I went monster hunting or wound up staying awake all night. Even five years of aging couldn’t have accounted for the difference between when I was an active Wayfinder and now.

It was a sobering thought to realize that, even if I wanted to, I might not be able to go back to Wayfinding like I used to. I picked it over for a few minutes and then pushed myself to my feet. I had another mile to walk and dinner to prepare.

After cleaning up from dinner, I sat down in the lounge to read while I waited for Natalie to come home. Fifteen minutes into failing to stay completely awake, Camille, Lucas, and Tiffany walked in the front door together. After they took off their snowsuits, Lucas and Tiffany disappeared into their rooms while Camille came into the lounge. When she sat down in a chair near the couch I was sitting, I pulled myself away from the precipice of sleep, put down my book, and looked over at her.

“Marshall.” Camille nodded to me.

“Camille.” I nodded back. “What’s up?”

“We’ve got a list of people who might be interested in joining us if we decide to start Wayfinding again.” Camille pulled a slip of paper out of her pocket and handed it to me. “A couple experienced people and a few of the most promising recruits from the classes I’ve been teaching. They’re all up for doing trips based out of the Chicago Enclave. I’m thinking we want to pick two or four of them. Six or eight people total would be the best for the kind of trips we want to do.”

“Yeah?” I scanned the list, barely registering the names as I thought about sleeping in the cold every night and forgetting what it felt like to be warm. Eating whatever we could get our hands on that was light and long-lasting. Watching every direction for signs of bandits or monsters. Being buffeted by the heavy winds as we crossed uninhabitable wastelands where farming complexes used to be. “What kind of trips are those?”

“Lots of supply runs, small-group escorts of one or two people, data relays, that sort of thing. Mostly the stuff without people, if I’m honest. We’ll move faster alone and won’t need to worry about bandits as much if we just focus on deliveries. I don’t think Lucas wants to deal with people that much and all of the retired Wayfinders I talked to just want to get back out there again. I know I’m tired of being cooped up behind these walls all the time, if nothing else. Tiffany is, too.”

“Did you know she sleeps outside the Enclave most nights?” I stopped pretending to look at the list, and glanced over at Tiffany’s door to make sure it was still closed. “She dislikes living in an Enclave so much that she camps in abandoned buildings outside the Enclave by herself most nights.”

“I don’t know if she’s actually by herself most nights.” Camille shrugged and smirked. “She usually brings someone along for company and half my students love getting extra survival lessons from here if they can find her when we go outside the Enclave for a lesson.”

I stared at Tiffany’s door for a minute longer and then sighed. I turned my attention back to Camille and smiled ruefully. “I can understand her desire. I think I’m getting cabin fever as well.”

“Sure took you long enough.”

“What can I say?” I held up my hands, palms up. “I’m old. I don’t mind having a proper bed and being warm now and then.”

Camille chuckled and nodded. “Fair enough. I feel the same. I don’t mind having plenty of blankets for cold nights or having tea around to drink in the mornings. I’ll miss snacks most of all, though. Being able to eat whenever I want instead of on a schedule of breaks, not needing to skip meals when something is happening, and being able to just lazily eat something instead of needing to eat it quickly so I can get on with my duties…” Camille sighed and rubbed the back of her neck. “That’ll be difficult to get used to again.”

“Have you made any plans yet?”

“No, we wanted to talk to you first.”

“Well, I still need to talk to Natalie.”

“Of course.”

“But I think it would be alright to start making some plans for once I’ve talked to her. Maybe set up a few week-long trips to places around Chicago that need some attention so we can safely get back into the swing of things and see how these people stack up.” I handed the list back to Camille. “Once I talk to Natalie, we’ll start picking dates and stuff. Maybe we can get everything done in the next few weeks and be ready to go for real right after the next blizzard passes.”

“In six weeks?” Camille raised her eyebrows as she tucked the list away in her pocket again. “That’s a tall order, Captain. I don’t know if that’s going to be possible.”

“Well, let’s try. No sense in waiting a quarter of a year to do our first trip.” I stood up and stretched. “Now I’m going to get ready for bed and get some sleep so I can be awake enough to talk about this with Natalie tomorrow.”

“Good night, Marshall.” Camille stood up and walked toward her room.

“Good night, Camille.” I went into mine and Natalie’s room, got dressed for bed, and lay down. I read for a while, trying to get myself back into the calm, sleepy state of mind I’d been in before Camille and I had talked. I turned off the lights after nodding off a couple of times, lay down, and immediately fell asleep.

What felt like only a few moments later, I woke up as someone settled into the bed next to me. I groggily reached out and pulled Natalie closer to me. I kissed the top of her head and fell back to sleep before I remembered I needed to talk to her. When I woke up the following morning, feeling much more awake and alert than I had any right to so soon after sleeping, I stared at the ceiling of the room, trying to figure out what to say to the woman I loved as she quietly snored beside me while I waited for her to wake up.

When her alarm went off, it scattered all my thoughts and I scrambled to pick them up for a moment before just leaving all my carefully worded arguments on the floor of my mind. Instead, I grabbed her arm as she rolled over to get out of bed and pulled her back to me.

“Hey, handsome.” Natalie leaned over and kissed me. “Sorry to wake you up.”

“I was already awake.” I gave her a squeeze but kept my arms around her. “I think I want-” I paused, cleared my throat, and started again a little more firmly. “I want to go back to Wayfinding.”

“What?” Natalie pulled back a bit, trying to get my whole face into view.

“I want to go back to Wayfinding.” I loosened my arms a little so she could get out of bed if she wanted to, but she stayed where she was so I continued. “Not like we used to, but something based out of the Enclave. Trips between blizzards. Supply runs, messenger runs, that kind of stuff. Maybe a few small escorts. Just stuff to get me back outside the walls again.”

“Are you tired of living here?” Natalie tipped her head a little bit, her eyes searching mine.

“No. Not at all.” I raised and lowered one shoulder. “At least, not permanently. I don’t want to live anywhere else, but I need something to shake up my routines. I got used to the excitement of Wayfinding and sitting in an office is slowly draining me of life.”

“So you’d come back here between jobs?”

“Yeah. And probably only one job per season. Gone for a month or so and then back until after the blizzard. Keep them short so I can always take shelter here instead of finding a place out there unless something goes terribly wrong.”

“Like last time.” Natalie kept her eyes locked on mine.

“Yeah.” I looked away for a moment, a little deflated. “Like last time.”

“Marshall…” Natalie reached up and laced her hands behind my head. “I want you to be happy. If this will make you happy, then I support you all the way. You’ve done the same for me.” Natalie pulled me in for another kiss and smiled. “Just promise me you’ll be safe, okay?”

“I’ll make sure we always come back safe and sound.” I smiled and kissed her again. “We’re not even planning to do anything but move around Chicago on some training trips before the next blizzard. I’m going to see if we can get something set up for right after it, though.”

“We?” Natalie arched an eyebrow in mock severity. “Who is ‘we’?”

“Camille, Lucas, Tiffany, and maybe a few more Wayfinders we’ve yet to pick.”

Natalie gasped and frowned, but I could see the smile hiding in her eyes as she huffed in indignation. “Lucas? But he’s the whole reason we retired in the first place! What a hypocrite. To think, my two best friends and my protege are trying to lure my lover away from my bed, to wander the lawless wastelands with them.”

I smiled, playing into her game. “I will always be faithful to you, my love, so long as I shall live. The empty tundra and the beautiful women accompanying me shall have no power over me so long as I know you wait for me here.”

“See that they don’t.” Natalie gave me a stern look and I chuckled, unable to keep a straight face. “Now, before you go haring off, let me remind me of what you’ll be coming back to.” Natalie’s hands drifted lower and my composure completely broke. “I need to make sure you’re properly motivated to make it back here in one piece.”

A while later, while Natalie got ready for work, I lay in bed and let my mind lazily start sorting through contacts and possible jobs. Thanks to my work over the past five years, I had even more contacts than before and would be able to easily find whatever work we wanted. All I’d need to do is find a few people to replace me at the office here, someone to replace Camille, and make sure the interviews for a position as one of my companions stayed a secret. If word got out, I’d have more people trying to join up than I could handle.

Wanderlust

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James heaved himself out of his car and staggered to the trunk. He looked at everything he owned scattered on the forest floor for a moment before gathering up his backpack, his messenger bag, and whatever else he could fit into his already stuffed bags.

He grabbed a few bottles of water and wrapped his blanket around his shoulders. Once his messenger bag had been shifted so it hung under his backpack, he looked around the woods one last time before starting off at a forty-five degree angle from the direction his car had been going.

He managed to walk for about fifteen minutes before he got light-headed and had to sit. He let himself take five minutes to rest, drink some water, and make sure he wasn’t losing too much blood. Once his five minutes were up, he carried on.

When the sun had set, he’d crossed half a dozen roads, changed directions ten times, and taken a short nap hidden under a pile of leaves. After a brief dig through his backpack, he pulled out his headlamp and carried on, stopping only once to hide his light when he saw a line of flashlights bobbing in the distance.

The next morning came late, hidden behind a light rain, but he still walked until his legs refused to carry him any further. A short rest got him back on his feet and then his feet got him to a dry spot to set up camp. As he ate a protein bar and set out his collapsible cookware to collect water, he hummed a song to himself. As he curled up under his blanket, he sang a few lines as he drifted off.

“And everything must end so something new can start. And I’m on my way back home.”

You Should be Reading “An Absolutely Remarkable Thing”

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If you are a Human who uses social media, grew up on the internet, are a part of modern society, have regular access to the internet, or sometimes wonder how the world has become as angry and loud as it currently is, you need to read Hank Green’s “An Absolutely Remarkable Thing.” Ideally, everyone should read it. I doubt it’s the first book of its kind, but I don’t know if any other book like it speaks with as much experience, is written with as much clarity, or delivers as powerful a message as Hank Green’s does. This Science Fiction/Coming-of-Age-For-The-Modern-Twenty-Something novel is the beginning of something big that I can’t really put my finger on, but everyone I know who has read it agrees with me so I’m inclined to believe my gut on this one. You should read this so you don’t fall behind. Also, if you someone miss that feeling of something on the horizon or don’t really get what I’m talking about, you’ll at least have read a good book.

Even though this book doesn’t really fit into any of the modern genres, I still think it’s useful to talk about it in those contexts. This is a science fiction novel because it involves a world much like our own with a few changes, all of which could be explained by technological advances. It also talks about the way technology (in this case, social media) impacts civilization and offers some wonderful, insightful commentary on the lives of Humans and on Humanity as a whole. It is a Coming-of-Age novel because it involves the growth of a character from a more “childlike” mindset to a more “adult” one, even if all it really does is show an adult, albeit one in their early-to-mid-twenties, becoming wiser and more responsible as a result of the challenges they face and overcome. The book, at its core, is both of these things done in the best ways possible. The story focuses on a young woman who suddenly finds herself going viral and what she does as a result of that. She makes mistakes, she learns a more about how the world and Humanity works, and she ultimately makes a statement about the Human Condition.

Even though you can’t really separate it from those genres, it still shouldn’t be lumped into them without an asterisk. Instead of the usual coming-of-age story about a child becoming an adult or leaving behind the carefree days of youth for the responsibilities of adulthood, this story is about the uncertainty modern twenty-somethings face and the way that we struggle to find a place to exist in the world. Above all else, though, it’s a story about the internet and how Hank Green feels about it, as told through a fictional setting making use of hyperbole to make a point. If you don’t know who Hank Green is, he’s the younger half of the Vlog Brothers and the person who has most relentlessly pursued a pro-internet agenda. He’s started dozens of companies, or at least started dozens of big projects, like various educational shows with their own YouTube channels, a side channel for his process and projects as a whole, 2D glasses for people like me (well, people like his wife) who get headaches when we watch 3D movies, at least one charity, multiple conventions, and so much more. He has been a huge part of internet culture for a long time and he has firmly advocated that the internet is a good thing.

If you went to one of his book events or have read the book, you know he doesn’t really believe that anymore. Now, he seems pretty clear that the internet is a tool. Whether it is good or bad depends entirely on how it’s used. He has a lot more to say on the topic, but I don’t trust myself to properly recall the talk he gave at his book event and I will update this review with a video about it if he ever posts one (or if I find one he’s previously posted). To summarize, though, we basically failed to establish rules on the internet and that has allowed a lot of very angry and very loud people to have influence we should have denied them. Unlike physical societies or communities, there aren’t strict mores governing how we treat each other on the internet. Closely tied communities like the Nerdfighters (what the fans of the Green Brothers call themselves) might have some, but the internet at large does not, nor do a lot of internet communities. All of which is an important part of understanding what Hank Green says in his book during the times the protagonist, April May, interacts with her fan communities. Or strangers on the internet. Or the communities that sprung up specifically to oppose her. There’s a lot of really good social commentary that feels particularly relevant after the shitshow that was 2015 and 2016 wound up deciding to carry on through the present. There are entire characters, antagonists mostly, who map to some of the negativity and hate that we’ve seen crop up since then, and it’s all shown to us by someone who knows what it is like to be an internet celebrity, to be able to influence thousands of people with a single tweet. Someone who knows what that power can do to people has reached out and shown us what that power can do to the person who has it and wants to use it for good.

Even without all that, it’s still a really engaging book that addresses the age-old question of “what would it look like if we had an encounter with an alien species?” The story is about a young woman who finds what looks to be a new art installation in New York City when she’s heading home from work late one night, and how her life changes as she becomes the official face of what the world has taken to calling “the Carls,” which are the exact same art installation that appeared in cities all over the world at the exact same moment. There’s romance, heartbreak, violence, and even a bit of heartwarming friendship all mixed into a plot that could carry the book on its own. April May has to figure out what the art installations are and defend her beliefs about them in front of an international. audience before the people who are senselessly promoting fear and hate get ahead of her, or else she’ll lose what she believes in one of the best opportunities she has to be a force for good in the world.

The writing itself is clean, pleasant, and easy to follow. It reflects the way Hank thinks and talks in his YouTube videos. Hank tends to keep his sentences brisk and direct, heading directly toward his meaning like they’re going to lose out if they don’t get there quickly. It works really well for a book like “An Absolutely Remarkable Thing,” a story told as if the narrator were speaking to us or writing an informal blog post. There are a few places where that backfires a bit, ending in some grammatically correct but difficult sentences were the verb tenses combine to make a tangle of words, but there’s literally no way to avoid this in the English language if you’re writing a first-person narrative in the past-tense about events that happened but are still sorta of a part of life when the story is being told and specific things might even still be happening the day the reader picks up the book. I don’t really ascribe to the whole “English rifles through the pockets of other languages for loose grammar” derision a lot of people express (I literally studied the languages that combined to become English and the history of the English language, so I’ve got a view-point that most people don’t have), but I will say that past tense talking about events still ongoing is a pain in the ass to write. These moments that no one can avoid are the only burrs in the story and it wouldn’t have been as powerful any other way. Just keep going if you hit them. The meaning of each sentence is clear enough, they just sound weird in your head or out loud.

While we only see one character in detail, we get enough of a picture of the other characters for them to all feel incredibly real. Even the bossy, sorta nasty PR woman who basically takes on all of April May’s publicity and contacts stuff seems like a real person you’ve met even if she’s only in the story a handful of times. The main antagonist, who sees The Carls as something to be feared and hated rather than as something that could unite Humanity, even gets the same treatment. Despite appearing as a caricature of hate (like a lot of internet personalities), Hank Green manages to make it clear that this person has depth to them, even if all we see if their caricature because the narrator doesn’t spend much time on them. More than any one character, though, Humanity as a whole gets one of the best depictions I’ve ever read. We’re depicted as beings who want to simplify and who often define ourselves not by what we support but by what we fight against. Some of whom will embrace hate or fall prey to fear when we’re up against something we don’t understand instead of taking a chance on hope and love. It’s honestly kind of refreshing to see someone who regularly witnesses the best and worst of humanity as an online media presence show us in a truthful and complex light rather than just one extreme or the other.

You should read this book. Everyone should read this book. I’ve bought three copies and am planning to buy more, just so I can give it away to people. If you really want it but can’t afford it, I will try to buy it for you, finances permitting (I can’t afford to buy one for everyone, though I totally would if I could). Buy it for yourself and then treat yourself to an afternoon of reading. Knock it out in one sitting and then bask a book that is the start of something much bigger than itself. Maybe in a few more years, there’ll be an entire genre for books about finding meaning in the twenty-first century and trying to grow as a twenty-something. I can’t wait to see what comes of this movement and I’m going to do my best to be a part of it.

Coldheart and Iron: Part 33

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READ FROM THE BEGINNING

Five Years Later

“Next, please.” I grabbed the paper application and scanned the top for a name. “Felix?”

“Yessir.” The man before me nodded his head and then clasped his arms behind his back.

“You want to be a Wayfinder.”

“Yessir.”

I skimmed through the application for his aptitude test score and suppressed the urge to whistle. The kid had passed, but only just. His scores were all at the cutoff point. Even one more mark off in any of the tests and he would have failed. I looked up at him and his head snapped up so he was staring at the wall instead of me. I sighed.

“Why do you want to be a Wayfinder, Felix?”

“Sir.” Felix cleared his throat, glanced down at me, and then resumed staring at the wall behind me. “I want a taste of the open air. I want to wander between Enclaves, free to see what’s left of the world my parents lost, and I want to do my part to help Humanity keep moving forward.”

“Did you just read that off the poster behind me?” I turned to look at the wall behind me and found his exact words printed there, on one of Natalie’s old recruitment posters. I turned back to Felix who was suddenly incredibly interested in the edge of my desk. I watched him for a moment before shaking my head. “You’re good enough, Felix. With training, you could be even better. It’s clear your heart really isn’t in it, though.”

“I know, sir.” Felix met my eyes for a brief moment. “I just… It’s the only thing that would get me out of here. I want to get away and be a hero while I’m at it. Learn to fight monsters, kill bandits, and save people. Otherwise, I don’t know what I’m going to do with my life. Everything else feels pointless in the face of this unending winter.”

I stamped the application in my hand and gave it back to him. “Like I said, you’re good enough. I don’t know if wanting any kind of meaning in your life will get you through your basic training and then three years of shadowing as a trainee, but I’m not going to stop you from trying.”

“Thank you, sir.” Felix saluted and then walked off toward the clerk’s desk, where he’d be assigned to a training group. I watched him for a moment before turning back to my desk and the line of waiting people, all hoping to become Wayfinders.

After well over fifty rejections, two more admissions, and a handful of people I managed to convince not to join, the line had emptied out and I was able to get to work on some of the paperwork I had to file with the Enclave for bringing on new Wayfinders. The new training program was great, and we were seeing a higher rate of trainee survival during the four years I’d been running things out of the Chicago Enclave, but it meant paying Wayfinder trainees for a year before we could use them for anything and that meant leaning on the Enclave a little.

They were completely fine with supporting us, of course, since our training programs kept the area free of bandits and monsters, but it did mean a lot of paperwork. It also meant Camille and I got paid instead of living off our savings, which we both enjoyed. Lucas was the only one who had actually retired and it was increasingly clear that he was glad to be sharing a living space and food with the rest of us since it kept his bills low.

After I finished the paperwork, it was about mid-afternoon, so I decided to call it an early day. Anyone who came after I left could stick their applications in the drop slot in the door of the office I rented, or leave it with Will, the man I’d hired to take care of scheduling and organizing the training programs. He made sure each of the Wayfinder instructors had a full class and kept track of when each new group was full enough to start being taught. He was an ex-Wayfinder as well, missing an arm and a leg, so he was all too happy to demonstrate what the job could cost you even if you were good at it.

It helped get rid of all the people signing up just because I was still popular as one of the heroes of the last monster attack five years ago. Natalie had kept me in the spotlight for a while, letting me ride fame for a bit to get more Wayfinders and to get the Enclave some good will after their last plan resulted in a bandit and monster attack. No one really blamed them, but there’d been a lot of resentment to go around back then and a few almost-riots.

After I’d waved goodbye to Will, I left the office and made my way through the office park to the main road. A couple miles of walking, interrupted by a few conversations with people I walked by every day, got me to the center of the Enclave and the laboratory where Natalie worked. I waved at the same people, made the same comfortable, old jokes, and was waiting on the comfortable, ancient couch in Natalie’s office fifteen minutes after I got there, rifling through the same old science journals she’d been hoarding since someone found an intact library.

At this point, I’d opened them more than her, all while waiting for her. My job was fairly casual since I was mostly just pushing paper for the Wayfinders as a whole and processing applicants after they’d take their tests. Natalie was part of a group of scientists who were trying to figure out a way to beat the monsters for good. She wasn’t able to talk about her work much, but it was clear they were on to something given how excited she’d been lately and how late she’d been working most days.

I wound up taking a short nap while I waited and only woke up once Natalie had plopped down beside me, sighing. “Marshall, sweetie, how nice of you to drop by.”

I blinked and shook my head a bit, trying to clear the sleep from my mind. “Today was slow so I thought I’d come by to make sure you ate dinner.” I yawned and slipped my arm around here shoulders as she got into a more comfortable position on the couch.

“Oh, is that all?” Natalie leaned over to give me a kiss that lasted a bit longer than I expected. “It’s been a while since we’ve both had a few moments to ourselves and are awake enough to put them to use.” Natalie pulled me a little closer and smiled up at me.

“Oh.” I blinked, trying to pull my mind together still and suddenly fighting the battle on two fronts. “What about the offices next door?”

“Everyone’s in the lab.” Natalie pressed a little closer to me and I cleared my throat.

“What about the hallway? That door isn’t very sound proof.” I swallowed. “Or lockable.”

Natalie leaned back and laughed. “You’d think we’d never had to be quiet before! We used to have nothing but the walls of our tent separating us from other people.”

I laughed too, a little less loudly. “Sure, but I’ve kind of gotten used to having privacy.”

“Alright. Let’s go get dinner then and I’ll make sure I’m home before it gets too late.” Natalie winked at me and pushed herself to her feet.

I stood up and stretched, trying to get my heart rate back down again. “How was work?” I grabbed the water bottle off of Natalie’s desk and took a few drinks to clear the sleep taste out of my mouth.

“Fine. I wish I could tell you what I’m working on.” Natalie smiled and gathered up her bag. “You’d love the idea of it.”

“Yeah?” I set the bottle down and followed her into the hallway. She led us through the labyrinth of tunnels, making our down to the cafeteria on one of the bunker levels. Any of the scientists could eat in the cafeteria for free since the Enclave wanted to keep them working here, but the tradeoff was that they were required to report in, with as many family members as they wanted, any time there was an alert. The bunker could house all of them and their laboratories, so they could work on solutions to whatever problems plague the surface.

There’d only been one alarm since Natalie started working here and it had been a real pain to have to haul myself out of bed and into the bunker instead of rising to the city’s defense like last time. It had turned out to be a false alarm, thankfully, but I still didn’t much like the idea of having to choose between defending the city and staying with Natalie.

While we ate, we talked about schedules and I let her know that Camille and I would be in the field starting next week while she let me know that they were shutting down the lab the following weekend, to force everyone to take a break and rest, so she’d have a few days entirely free. We made plans and just enjoyed each other’s company until Natalie’s watch started beeping at her.

“Sorry, Marshall, my test is done. I need to go check on the results.”

I picked up our trays and gave her a kiss. “I’ll take care of this and see myself out. See you tonight.”

“See you tonight.” Natalie slapped my butt as I walked away and I chuckled self-consciously as I tried to avoid making eye contact with anyone else in the cafeteria. Once I’d escaped the confusing tunnels of the Enclave research laboratory, I made my way back to the compound. There were fewer people in it now, but we’d done some remodeling so those of us who wanted larger rooms had them. The only other person who still lived there, besides Natalie, Camille, Lucas, and myself was Tiffany.

After she’d figured out how to do everything she wanted to with only one hand and had learned everything Natalie could teach her, she wound up staying in the Enclave, working with Camille as a Wayfinder trainer and helping the Enclave defenders to keep the city clear of bandits and monsters. She spent more nights out of the compound than in it, but she had no desire to find a place of her own. And she still managed to constantly scare me by hiding in plain sight until she wanted something. I just assumed she was around all the time now, even if I saw her walk out the door.

When I finished taking off my snowsuit and boots, I found Camille and Lucas sitting the in the lounge, talking about something quietly. When they noticed me, they both immediately fell silent and then started talking loudly about Camille’s training group. I sighed and just went to the kitchen to grab some water. I’d already tried getting them to talk about whatever it is they were up to, but Camille just played dumb and Lucas told me to talk to Camille about it.

Just as I was about to go find something to read while I made sure I was properly hydrated for the evening, Camille and Lucas sauntered into the kitchen. I looked at them, dreading whatever it was they were about to say. Camille opened her mouth to speak a couple of times, but it was Lucas who eventually broke the silence.

“I’m bored and I wanna go back to Wayfinding. Camille feels the same way and Tiffany won’t admit it to you, but she’s getting super tired of teaching trainees.”

I put down my glass of water, walked over to the kitchen table, sat down, and rubbed my face with my hands. “Is that really what you’ve been secretly talking about for months?”

“Yes.” Camille sad down opposite me, hands folded in front of her. Lucas leaned against the wall behind her.

“Why? What took you so long to say that?” I folded my arms across my chest and leaned back. “I get that maybe you’d be worried about how I’d react, but this doesn’t feel like it was worth months of quiet discussion.”

“It wasn’t.” Camille leaned forward a little bit. “We think you should come with us.”

“Oh.” I looked from one of them to the other. “And Natalie?”

“She won’t want to come.” Lucas stepped forward to stand next to Camille. “She’s clearly enjoying her job at the laboratory and she didn’t really want freedom like the rest of us did. She loved our mission, but she doesn’t feel the same need to be moving that the rest of us do.”

“Okay, that makes sense.” I shook my head slowly, incredulously. “But what makes you think I want to go? I’m perfectly content to take things a bit easier and I love being able to live openly with Natalie instead of having to hide our relationship from rules I created.”

“But you’re clearly just as bored as the two of us.” Camille shrugged and then folded her arms loosely on the table. “You do the same thing every day, putter around the compound every day, and it’s clear to anyone watching you that you’re trying to find comfort in routines that are slowly driving you crazy.”

“What?”

“Marshall, c’mon.” Lucas sat down on the edge of one of the other chairs. “Give us some credit. Natalie may be too busy to notice, but do you really think that we haven’t seen you keep up your Wayfinder training? Or not hear you throwing books around your room in frustration when your days at work have been particularly slow.”

“You’re a lot of things, Marshall, but you’re never one to sit around while things need doing.” Camille smiled. “You’ve fixed everything in the compound twice and would have tripled that number if Tiffany hadn’t taken you to task for fixing things that weren’t broken.”

“Maybe I am bored.” I shrugged, trying to ignore the feeling of being caught in what I’d thought had been a well crafted illusion. “But I definitely don’t want to go back to Wayfinding like we used to. I have a life here, now, and I’d rather stay with Natalie and be bored until the day I die that leave here without her.”

Lucas held up a hand, halting the tirade I was building toward. “What if you didn’t need to leave here?”

“How could I do that?”

“Single trip missions.” Camille pulled a map out of her pocket and laid it out on the table in front of us. “Tiffany has marked every Enclave we can reach and returned from between blizzards. There are even a few that are about a blizzard away that would be perfect for longer trips since we’d be able to easily manage them between blizzards and stay in an Enclave during a blizzard.”

“All the fun of Wayfinding with none of the hassle involved in finding and fortifying shelters. No traipsing across the entire continent for dumb clients who think their life will be better on the west coast than it is on the east coast.” Lucas leaned forward and started pointing out routes. “We could even do shorter trips, if you want time at home. Because of the strength of the Chicago Enclave and their anti-signal net, tons of other Enclaves are sending people back and forth to study it and figure out how to set up something similar in their city.”

Camille started reading off the numbers next to each route. “Thirty-two days. Fifteen days. Forty-five days. They’re all easily reachable in the time between blizzards. We take the jobs we want, stick to our small group, and we should be able to go back to Wayfinding like we used to without a problem.”

“You’d see Natalie at least as much as you see her now.” Lucas smiled and leaned back in his chair. “Maybe even more since she’d make time for you instead of basically ignoring you for six months while she’s busy with some project.”

Lucas was looking up at the ceiling while he spoke, so he didn’t see my face go from nervously interested to angry, but Camille did. Camille immediately whacked Lucas in the check, grabbed the maps, and stood up. “Sorry, Marshall. He didn’t mean it like that. We don’t expect an answer right now, so we’ll going to leave right now and give you some time to think it over.”

“Mean what?” Lucas rubbed his chest as he stood up, glaring at Camille. “I meant what I said, she basically ignores him, comes home late, leaves just before he does. If it wasn’t for the fact that they shared a room, I doubt they were in a relationship.”

Camille stuffed the maps back into her pockets and walked away, apologizing to me again as she went. Lucas looked after her for a moment, and then finally looked at me. He practically ran after her when he saw the stony look on my face and apologized as he went. “Sorry, Marshall. I let my mouth run away with my again. I didn’t mean it like that.” After he disappeared around the corner, he shouted back. “Think about it.”

I tried to stay angry for a while, but I couldn’t. I did feel ignored sometimes, when Natalie got caught up in a project, but I loved how much she cared about the stuff she did so I wouldn’t have wanted her any other way. Plus, they were right. I was bored. Routines were nice, but almost two years of the same thing with no variations aside from the occasional trip to hunt Monsters as part of the graduation ceremony for a trainee Wayfinder left me feeling somewhat numb. It would be nice to get out and doing stuff again. Leave the desk behind for most of the year and get back on my feet.

It was incredibly tempting. So tempting that I was still thinking about it as I lay awake after my evening with Natalie. I held her close to me as I thought about the logistics of the trips and how I sometimes wished to be back in my sleeping bag again, sleeping on the packed snow that was always the wrong shape when you went to sleep up perfectly molded to your body by the time you woke up. Small cook fires that made everyone huddle close, storytelling with the various travelers we guided, the dazzling white of a bright snowy morning in the tundra.

It was so tempting that I was still awake when Natalie’s alarm went off on her watch and she got up to get ready for work.

All Natural

Chris Leave a comment

It was one of the parks in the city big enough to let you forget you were surrounded by concrete and glass. Lucia wouldn’t know he was there.

His phone rang. He pulled it out of his pocket, saw her face, and silenced it as he fought down the rising panic. It was only three in the afternoon and he had plenty of time. As the panic started to win the battle, he hauled himself to his feet and started walking toward the parking lot.

Half an hour later, his bugout bag in hand, he bought a greyhound ticket. Once he got to the state park, it was easy to find someone willing to sell him camping gear. He had plenty of money and most of the people he saw didn’t really want to be camping anyway.

It was early morning by the time he began setting up camp. There was no way anyone would be able to find him. He basked in that peace for two days, surviving off the fat of the land and drinking from crystal springs. But then he approached his campsite one night and heard voices.

Abandoning his gear, he immediately turned around and headed toward the nearby mountain. He walked through the night and didn’t stop until the sun had set again. When he gave up trying to sleep, the sun was rising. He walked toward a cliff to check his surroundings. As he admired the beauty of this national park, his phone rang. He pulled it out and answered.

“Hi, Lucia.”

“Sweetie! Where have you gone?”

Adam pulled the phone away from his face and bellowed. “You’ll never find me, you devil.” He threw his phone as hard as he could, watching it sail into the distance, and shouted after it. “I quit!”

Coldheart and Iron: Part 32

Chris Leave a comment

READ FROM THE BEGINNING

After what felt like an excruciating hour of darkness, pain, and ringing silence, my vision started to clear. I heard a small thump far above me and tried to orient myself. A second thump following the first and them everything was drowned out by a loud bang. The shockwave hitting the building caused dust to fall from above and my brain finally oriented itself.

I was lying face-down on the floor in a pile of rubble, my pack still so tight it was constricting my chest. Rotten wood, rusted pipes, foam insulation, and the weird plasticy material that ceiling tiles were made out of was covering the floor around me. I tried to push myself to my feet, but my right arm wasn’t working properly and there was something heavy on top of it. Gingerly, moving carefully so I didn’t shift anything I could avoid, I pulled a flashlight out of my pocket and shined it around me.

I must have fallen through a weak spot in the floor when I landed in the next building over, somehow pulling more of the floor down with me than I’d landed on.I stuck the flashlight in my mouth and shifted my head so I could look at my right arm. It had vanished beneath a pile of rubble and what looked like a filing cabinet. I tried to wiggle my fingers and was rewarded with a flash of pain and the sensation of some kind of chalky dust against the floor.

Unfortunately, that was about all I could see. I was stuck, face-down, under a pile of rubble and had only one arm free, which I couldn’t really use because I wasn’t sure what might come tumbling down on top of me if I started digging. There was another bang from the next building over and I felt the pile of rubble shift slightly. I fought down the rising tide of panic and counted my heartbeats, trying to keep it slow while I waited.

Three hundred sixty-five beats, later, I heard the approaching thumping of two sets of feet. Then a door slammed open, hitting the pile of rubble, and a few chunks of wood crashed down where my left arm had been when I woke up. “Stop!”

“Marshall? Marshall! You’re alive!” Natalie’s voice was muffled, but I could hear the mixture of fear and relief in her voice.

“Yeah. I’m under all the rubble and it’s not stable at all.”

“Shit, I’m sorry.” I could hear Natalie moving around the pile.

“It’s going to take too long to dig me out right now, with the monsters closing in and the bandits next door. Just leave me here until the fight’s over. I’ll be fine until then.” I looked to my left, were the pile of boards lay and saw the shattered end of a pipe sticking out of the debris ceiling. “There’s a pipe letting in a little light and fresh air, so just leave me here until you can come back to get me.”

“Captain, there’s a giant steel beam hanging over you that might come loose at any second.”

“What?” I tried to think of the floor we’d picked and what I remembered of the conference room. “We shouldn’t have been anywhere near an internal support.”

“Marshall, you fell through four floors.” Natalie had moved around the pile to a closer spot. “I don’t know how you survived it, but the floor beneath the conference room was a storeroom at one point and the floor just collapsed when you hit it, taking you and all the filing cabinets down to the next floor, which was a convention hall of some kind. There’s a bunch of iron truss and some smaller I-beams that are just dangling over the hole now.”

“All the more reason to just leave me here and get out!” I closed my eyes and lay my head down on the floor. “If I made that much noise, the monsters won’t be that far behind. Stop wasting your time and get somewhere safe!”

“You’re not the boss of me.”

“Yes, Tiffany, I am.”

“Then make me!”

“Natalie, you need to take her and go. The monsters won’t be able to sense me, so I should be fine. Just go for now and come back later, when the fighting is over. I’ll be fine.” I took as deep a breath as I could with the backpack on and listened for Natalie’s response.

A minute later, I heard her voice by the door. “C’mon,Tiffany. There’s nothing we can do here.”

The small part of me that hoped they’d stay and that everything would still be alright withered away. I scrunched my eyes up even tighter, until my vision went from black to purple and green, as I resisted the urge to ask them to stay.

“But… We can’t just leave him here, Lieutenant. If another few explosions happen, all the beams and truss are coming down. He doesn’t have that long.”

“Do as you’re told, Tiffany.” I could hear the stiffness in Natalie’s voice as the two of them shuffled around the door they’d come in. A moment later, I heard one set of feet walking away. “I love you, Natalie.”

“I love you too, Marshall.”

I heard Natalie’s feet hurry after Tiffany’s and stopped fighting the emotions welling up inside me. I felt a fear tears leak out of my eyes and was just about to get my hand in front of my face to wipe them off when I heard another boom from the next building over followed by a shriek of metal. An eternity later, something huge landed on the pile of debris to my right and the whole thing shifted as dust billowed into the space I occupied..

Once the dust cleared, I noticed the filing cabinet on my arm had shifted so I was able to get it free. The pain that lanced up and down my arm as I pulled it toward me let me know it was probably fractured, but I still had enough control over it to pull it close to my body and begin loosening the straps on my backpack. After I could properly breathe again, I shift my pack so I could grab my canteen. A small drink of water refreshed me and gave me the impetus I needed to wriggled around so I could look at more than the floor.

The entire structure of the pile was held up by the filing cabinets and a piece of metal truss that had fallen with me. There still wasn’t much beneath me other than the carpet from the conference room, plaster chunks, and a few lumpy objects hidden by the carpet, but I was able to find my gun. It took a bit of work using my feet to grab it, but it felt reassuring to have it at hand. Anything that kept me from focusing on being trapped beneath a pile of rubble was a welcome distraction.

I kept looking for a place to start digging myself out, but I couldn’t find anything that would help beyond pushing a few piles of rubble around to give me more space to maneuver. Just as my attention started to drift back toward the hopelessness of my situation, I heard another bang. This one, however, was below me. I had only a moment to wonder what happened before the floor beneath me cracked and I feel through it again.

I landed in a heap, on a pile of moldy old cushions and paper, but managed to twist so I fell on my left side instead of my right. Still, the shock of landing caused a pain in my chest to flare up so strongly I nearly blacked out again. Once my vision cleared, I saw Natalie and Tiffany standing at the far side of the room, coated in plaster and coughing triumphantly.

“What the hell?” I groaned and flopped onto my back.

“Lieutenant Natalie blew up just enough of the ceiling to drop you and only some of the debris pile into the room below.” Tiffany walked over and pulled my pack out of the pile of plaster chunks. “She’s really quite good at this sort of thing.”

Natalie walked over and grabbed my left arm. “Come on, Marshall. Time to get going. The monsters will have noticed that for sure and I want to be in the next building before they find their way up here.”

I groaned as I let Natalie haul me to my feet, trying to ignore the wave of pain that flashed through my chest. It was pretty clear I’d hurt my ribs in all of the falling I’d done, but thankfully it only hurt to breathe. I let Tiffany carry my pack but scooped up my rifle as I staggered out of the room. Natalie stayed a step behind me, ready to grab me if it looked like I was going to fall. Thankfully, there were only a couple false alarms as we made our way down nine flights of stairs to the second floor.

There, Tiffany led us out of the stairwell and into another long row of cubicles. Past the cubicles and a few private offices, there was a foyer with a big staircase down to the first floor and, off to the north end of the building, an elevated walkway to a different building. Most of the glass had blown out over the years, but there was enough built up debris that we could crawl across it unseen. While Natalie and I waited for Tiffany to cross and clear the other foyer, I peaked around the wall at the outside

I could see monsters walking through the streets, heading toward the building we’d originally been hiding in, with a few darting off in different directions after what were probably fleeing bandits. I grimaced as I watched them march, glad we had somehow avoided detection so far.

Once we got the signal from Tiffany, I did my best to quickly cross to the other side. It took a lot longer than I would have liked, thanks to my arm and ribs, but I made it across and was still conscious enough to watch Natalie’s back while she crossed. Tiffany then lead us through the building to the north side. An emergency exit let us out into an alley and from there we climbed a fence to continue moving east and north.

Once we’d gotten clear of the area immediately around my signal bomb, the streets cleared up. All of the monsters had converged on the building and the steady crack of gunfire let us know my plan had worked. Natalie pulled out a map at some point and started guiding us a little further north before taking us west toward another sniper nest. Once we’d holed up again, I had them help me bind my arm and find the painkillers I kept in my emergency kit. After that, the rest of the battle is a bit of a haze.

I remember continuing to shoot where Tiffany or Natalie told me to, but the first thing I remember as more than a vague, foggy image was Natalie and Tiffany leading me back toward the Enclave after the sun had set again and the battle was over. Even that trip had a lot of holes in it, despite the drugs starting to wear off. I remember a field hospital near the smoking ruins of the part of the Enclave the monsters had broken into, Natalie turning down more painkillers for me, and a warning bell sometime during the night that roused me long enough for Natalie to notice.

“Bandits are attacking now.” Natalie scooted over to sit beside me and grabbed my hand. “Don’t worry, though. The Enclave is holding strong and most of the Wayfinders are still out there.” I felt her stroke the back of my hand as the warning bell faded and I fell back asleep.

When I woke up, it was the middle of the day and the fighting was over. The Enclave held out against the bandits and now the defenders were patrolling the city, making sure all of the monsters had been destroyed.

“We survived.”

I looked over at Natalie and smiled. “Any word on Camille and Lucas?”

“Nothing yet, but only two sniper nests were wiped out by bandits, so we should see them as soon as the patrols are finished. I don’t think either of would turn down a chance to finish wiping out a bunch of monsters.” Natalie smiled back at me.

“Great.” I lifted my left arm and placed it over my face, blocking out the light in an attempt to quiet the pounding headache I had. “How about some water while we wait?”

After a few cups of water and a large bowl of oatmeal, I was starting to feel a little more alert and entirely aware of how much it hurt to breathe. I did my best to take shallow breaths, but it was more difficult than I expected to hold off the yawns that caused my vision to dim with pain every time they got out. After a few yawns escaped, Natalie gave me another dose of painkillers and I went back to sleep.

This time, when I woke up, it was morning, and Lucas, Camille, and Natalie were all sitting against the wall of my room at the compound. I’d been moved while I slept and now everyone was back. I left them all sleeping there while I got out of bed and went to get a drink of water. Draped around the common room was everyone’s stuff and even a couple extra Wayfinders I had recruited before the fight began. I quietly made my way through the room, got myself some water, and made it back to my room just in time to see Camille wake up.

“Marshall!” Camille started, leaping to her feet and taking the pitcher of water from me. “Get back in bed.”

“It’s just a few cracked ribs and a fractured arm.” I wiggled my shoulder and managed to not flinch when my arm bounced in its sling. “No big deal.”

“Sure.” Camille nodded as she ushered me back to bed. “Except your arm is more splintered than fractured and Natalie is going to kill all of us if she wakes up and you’re not where she left you.”

“Too late.” Natalie rubbed her eyes and yawned. “I’ll let it slide, though. This time.” She glared at me and I smiled back at her. My arm still hurt and my chest seared with pain every time I breathed, but all of my friends had made it back safely.

“Was I the only one injured?” I looked at Lucas who was still asleep despite the noise. “He’s fine?”

“Yeah.” Camille stretched and settled back against the wall where she’d been. “Aside from you, our little group came out unscathed aside from a few small cuts and bruises. The Wayfinders are a whole weren’t so lucky, but we only lost a dozen people and half that many were injured enough to warrant medical care, you included.”

“What about the defenders and the Enclave?”

“They lost a good deal more than that.” Natalie looked down at her hands. “The wall breach took a long time to seal and your plan didn’t pull as many of the monsters off the wall as you wanted, though it did do a great job of thinning out the bandit numbers. Almost a third of them died as a result of your plan, so we were able to hold the walls after we’d finished the monsters.”

“How many did the Enclave lose?”

Natalie paused, fishing for words, and Camille cut in. “Preliminary numbers estimate a few hundred civilians and about a quarter of the defenders. Injuries are about twice the casualty numbers for civilians and about the same as the casualties for the defenders.” Camille cleared her throat and, after a moment of silence, carried on. “We’re still waiting on an exact report and Enclave command expects the numbers to be less severe than the estimates as rescue operations are ongoing.”

“Ah.”

“We saved a lot of people, showing up when we did.” Camille shrugged. “They would likely have survived without us, but more of them are alive because we were here to help and organize the Wayfinders.”

“I just feel bad because I missed it all.” I waved with my left hand, trying to encompass the disappointment I felt. “I don’t think there was much I could have done to change things, but I do wish I’d at least been cognizant and able to actively help instead of needing to be helped.”

Natalie nodded and Tiffany, popping up from the other side of the room, shook her head. “You weren’t a burden, Captain. No matter how foggy you felt, you took direction, didn’t need to be carried, and actually hit most of the monsters you aimed at.”

I looked over at Tiffany, trying to figure out how I kept missing her all the time. Unable to come up with an answer, I just asked. “How are you always here and I never see you?”

“I come from a big family.” Tiffany smiled and sat down again. “I’m pretty good at disappearing when I’m not trying to get people’s attention.”

“Fair enough.” I smiled and looked around. “Well, we should probably wake Lucas up for this, but I think it’s time to decide what we want to do long-term.”

Tiffany saluted, leaned over, and poked Lucas in the side until he stirred. After a few moments of groggily looking around the room, his eyes landed on me and he smiled. “Good to see you’re up. The others report in already?”

I nodded. “And now we’re deciding what to do.”

“I still want to retire.” Lucas sleepily shrugged and looked away, a little defensive. “I know the rest of you still want to keep Wayfinding, but I’m ready for a long rest.”

“I kinda am, too.” It was my turn to shrug and look away. I glanced over at Natalie and smiled at her. “I’ve been thinking about it for a while and I think it might be a good time to retire. I’m not getting any younger and unless I wind up being immortal, there’s no way I’m going to be able to find everyone who went missing.”

“Marshall…” Camille looked at Natalie and then back at me. “Are you sure? I mean, that’s been the driving force behind everything you’ve done for almost two decades.”

“Yeah.” I looked at Camille, Lucas, and then Tiffany before looking back to Natalie. “I think I’m ready for something a little less dangerous. And I’m ready to focus on what I have now rather than what I’ve lost. I think now’s the time.”

Natalie came over to sit on the edge of my bed and gave me a kiss. “I think I’m ready to retire, too.”

Lucas smiled, leapt to his feet, and came over to give us both a hug. After the heart-warming moment was over, we all looked over at Camille who smirked. “I’m totally okay with retiring. I prefer training Wayfinders and hunting monsters to actually guiding people around the tundra and there’s plenty of both of those things to do here.” She came over to sit beside us. “To be honest, I was only still doing it because you all were.”

“Yay!” Tiffany leapt across the bed and hugged us all. “Now I don’t have to be deferential or respectful toward you assholes anymore.”

I smiled. “I’m guessing you’re not retiring, Tiffany.”

“No.” She smiled over at Natalie. “But I’ve got at least a year of relearning to do before I’m ready to be a Wayfinder again and Natalie promised to teach me all about maps and how to use them in the tundra.” She turned to me and glared in mock anger. “You’re not getting rid of me that easily, Marshall.”

I laughed and started pushing people off my bed. “Fair enough. Now go get some rest, everyone. You can’t have slept well on the floor here.” I smiled as everyone but Natalie left. Once they were gone and Camille had closed the door behind her, I scooted over the in the bed and Natalie climbed into it with me. While she slept, I gently stroked her hair and thought that maybe being retired wouldn’t be that bad after all.

The Edge of Sleep

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Half-dreamt thoughts on the edge of sleep. Little things seen out of the corner of your eyes. A double-take revealing nothing extraordinary. A memory of a moment in the future, forgotten until it happens.

“Anxiety” they said, “manifesting as insomnia and psychosis.” Sleep studies, sleeping pills, and sleep aids.

“You brain is just firing neurons. There’s nothing to worry about.” Pills, therapy, and even meditation, all to fix an imbalance that never budged.

“It’s a form of schizophrenia. We can figure it out.” More pills, more therapy, but also a treatment center this time.

Whispered conversations on the edge of hearing. Reports handed to parents with only the occasional word revealed to me. The knowledge they talked about me like I wasn’t there anymore and there was nothing I could do to convince them otherwise.

But it was all real. There were cracks in the world, slowly letting the magic and majesty of the old world back in. Atlantis had sunk, but not in water.

Now, after millenia, it was coming back, guided by creatures that looked like the worst nightmares of the woman in the cell next to mine whose wordless screams of pain and fear no words could have described better.

There was one other girl who knew. She showed up after I did but her family never visited. They kept us apart. “It just feeds your psychosis” they would say.

By the time they believed us, it was too late. The wards were sealed and they waited for the Atlanteans to get around to them before taking out the only people who could have stopped them.

It was easy. We were locked in cells and restrained in jackets. A flash of light and it was over.

I have that memory-dream every night, but no one believes me.

Coldheart and Iron: Part 31

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READ FROM THE BEGINNING

“Shit.”

“Tiffany?”

“I’m out of grenades and I’ve still got two doors to trap. You two got any?”

I let go of my rifle and rolled onto my back, unbuckling my belt as I moved to toss it to Tiffany who deftly caught it on the stump of her left arm. “Just make sure you bring the belt back. If we need to run, I’m going to need that to hold up my pants.”

“Marshall, you’re wearing a full-body snowsuit.”

I looked over at Natalie who was still steadily firing at any of the monsters that moved away from the main body attacking the Enclave. I shrugged, more for Tiffany’s sake than Natalie’s because her face was still pressed to the scope of her rifle. “It’s the principle of the thing, you know?”

Tiffany rolled her eyes and walked away. “If I’m not back in ten minutes, you two had better move.”

“How dare she disrespect me like that.” I rolled back onto my stomach with a huff. “She’s still only a trainee Wayfinder. She’s too new to disrespect me like that.”

“Shush, Marshall, I’m trying to aim.” Natalie fired again, taking out the monster I was settling my sights on. Without missing a beat, I swapped to the one behind it and, after a quick exhale, fired.

“How is that supposed to impact your aim?” I fired and took out another monster, this time pausing to watch the shattered metal fall to the ground before moving on to the next one. “You ears aren’t involved in aiming at this distance and I feel I have a right to prattle on if I want since it looks like everything’s going to hell.”

Natalie sighed, pausing after the exhale to take out a monster, and then leaned back to reload her rifle. “I know, Marshall. Just try to keep it down. There’s no reason to lead everything to our location any faster than shooting at them will.”

“I mean, the rifles are kind of a dead giveaway to anything with half a brain or whatever the monsters have.” I shot another two monsters in quick succession for emphasis. “Everyone more or less knows we’re here. I just hope we can make the jump to that building over there when the time comes.” I jerked a thumb at the building next to us, separated by about ten feet of open air. “It’s a good fifteen feet lower than us, sure, but we might just go through the floor or miss entirely.”

“Stop being such a pessimist, dear.” Natalie chambered the first round and got back to shooting monsters. “No one likes a pessimist.”

“Don’t kid yourself. You love and accept me just the way I am.” I took my last shot and then reloaded my gun, hands taking me through the familiar motion almost before I could think of what to do next. “Are you watching the time?”

“Yes. Seven minutes.”

“Neat. I’m gonna see if I got eyes on anything around us.” I grabbed a set of binoculars from my pack and started looking up the side streets east of the main force of monsters. There were still monsters wandering away from where they’d been penned in by the Enclave defenders, but most of them seemed intent on the hole in the wall one of them had created when it blew itself up. The other Wayfinders and sharpshooters were doing a good job preventing the monsters from flanking around the Enclave defenses, but I saw two more groups of bandits creeping up on various sniper nests.

“I hope the spotters are keeping an eye out.”

“It’s standard procedure, Marshall. Either they remember their training or they don’t. We can’t help them now.”

I dropped back to my stomach, lined up my rifle with the first group I’d seen, and shot one of the bandits in the chest. I looked through my scope at the bandits as they ran for their lives and saw the mess I made of the bandit I shot. “Whoops. I should change back to regular ammunition if I’m just shooting bandits.”

“Or you could keep firing on the giant mass of monsters and help us save the city, trusting the lives of the Wayfinders to the people protecting them who can’t fire on the monsters, anyway.” Natalie fired again and then reloaded, shooting me a glare I mostly ignored as I swapped out the heavier ammunition we used for the monsters with the standard, pre-collapse ammunition we used for bandits.

“Just one clip. Enough to let them all know they’re not as clever as they think they are.”

Natalie ignored me and went back to her shooting while I found the second group right below one of the sniper nests. I popped the bandit at the door in the head and watched the rest of the bandits flee. I spent the next five minutes finding groups of bandits and scattering them. When I was debating whether or not to keep shooting bandits, Tiffany showed back up and crouched down behind us.

“Doors are trapped and the bandits have entered the first floor. We’ll get a few of them on the way up since I double-trapped every route, but we’ll likely still need to defend this point.” Tiffany shrugged so that her gun fell into her arms and smiled wickedly. “I haven’t gotten much practice with this yet and I’d love to finally get back to business.”

“Or we just jump to the next building, pick a different sniper nest, and keep doing our job.” Natalie looked back at Tiffany and over at me. “Maximize our efficiency and do our best to keep the Enclave from getting swarmed.”

Tiffany was about to respond but I held up a hand. After Tiffany closed her mouth, I turned back to Natalie. “Is this you telling me that you think we still have a chance to hold?”

“I don’t know, Marshall. It’s been fifteen minutes since they blew a hole in the wall and it’s too soon to know anything for sure.”

“If you watched for a few minutes, would you have a better idea?”

“I could maybe make a few educated guesses, but that’s all they’d be. We’re still better off continuing to focus on the mission we started until the Enclave is clearly lost, no matter what I see.”

I nodded, thinking for a moment. “Alright. Tiffany, keep your focus on the bandits and let us know what they’re doing. If they make it to the doors soon, we’ll move out and jump to the next building. If we’ve got more time, I’d rather wait since I don’t like the idea of jumping unless we absolutely need to.”

Natalie nodded and got back to shooting as I reloaded my gun with the heavier ammunition. Tiffany looked at me for a moment and then shrugged. “I’ll try to set up an ambush point.”

“Sounds good.” I gave her a thumbs up and then let myself fall back into the rhythm of firing and reloading. I lost track of time as we continued shooting and so it caught me by surprised when I heard a bang and felt the building shake. I realized one of Tiffany’s traps had gone off and halted shooting for a minute to wait for the next one. When it didn’t go off, I went back to shooting but kept my ears open for anyone approaching.

A few minutes later, Tiffany came back, chuckling under her breath. “Turns out that there’s a weakness in the staircases. If the door blows up, it takes the landing with it and then it takes out three of the landings beneath it as well. I moved the grenades to another door and I’m going to booby trap as many doors and staircases as I can. We’re good for now.”

I gave her another thumbs-up but kept my focus on shooting monsters. To my left, Natalie’s steady firing stopped and I felt her pull the binoculars away from my side. “Going to look now?”

“Yeah. I’m hoping the fact that the monsters are still trying to flank the walls indicates that the Enclave’s defenders are holding their ground at the hole. If they are, we still have a chance.”

“Cool. Just let me know if we should move, otherwise I’ll keep shooting.” I returned my attention to my scope and kept firing, trying to keep my mind focused on my task as the seemingly endless stream of monsters made their way east of the main body, looking for a path over the wall. I lost myself in the motions again and I was once again brought back to reality by the rumble and shake of explosives going off somewhere in the building. My arms were stiff and the pile of magazines beside me had shrunk considerably. I looked around me and noticed that Natalie had gone back to firing a while ago, judging by the diminished size of her own ammunition stock. Behind me, Tiffany sat with her back to a wall.

“That’s one of the stairwells collapsing.” Tiffany gestured toward the interior of the building we were occupying. “Even if any of them survive, they’ll find another trap in every stairwell and once behind each door leading to this floor. I wouldn’t worry about them until we feel the blast wave of a trap on this floor going off.”

I nodded and stretched my arms out, moving them from side to side before pushing myself back from the ledge. Once I was safely out of sight from the battlefield stretching below me, I hauled myself into a sitting position and took a few sips of water from my canteen. “How long have we been at this?”

Natalie replied from her position. “Two hours and about fifteen minutes.”

“It’s been about an hour and a half since the first bandit group showed up here.” Tiffany tossed me a granola bar that I pensively chewed as I started calculating how many monsters we must have killed.

After a few seconds of getting nowhere, I abandoned it and turned to Tiffany. “How many bandit groups have attacked us? Is this only the second?”

“Yeah. We’re higher up than most of the other sniper nests and pretty far east of the main body. The bandits have to sneak past a ton of blind alleys, most of which could have a monster wandering through them at any given time. The other nests are much easier targets.”

“Shoot.” I filled my mouth with water and swished it around to get as much of the granola out of my teeth as possible while I thought. A few moments later, I had an idea. “How easy will it be to completely collapse the stairs so no one can get up or down?”

“Pretty easy.” Tiffany shrugged. “The only thing left entirely intact at this point is a fire escape and that cuts off a floor above the ground.”

“Neat.” I started digging through my backpack for my lantern. “Is everyone alright if I turn my attention on the bandits trying to attack the sniper nests and make us a target for every single one of them?”

“Sounds like a blast.” Tiffany smirked and stood up. “I’ll go trap the fire escape if you’ll give me your grenades, lieutenant.”

Natalie rolled over, slipped off her grenade belt, and slid it back to Tiffany. I looked over at her and offered her a sheepish smile that she returned. “‘Better us than them’, right?”

I nodded and started filling my snowsuit pockets with ammo. “I love that you get me.”

“I know.” Natalie winked at me and rolled back over to continue firing, accompanied by gagging noises from Tiffany.

Once I’d grabbed everything I could fit in my pockets, I snatched my rifle from the ground and retreated into the dim interior of the building, following Tiffany to another vantage point that was better suited to my task. After leaving me to get set up, Tiffany disappeared further into the building. Getting settled took a while longer than I would have liked, especially because I had to finish the magazine of heavy ammo first, but I was soon set up and shooting.

Any group of bandits I saw lost at least one person. They moved less predictably than the monsters did, so I missed a few shots, but the way they started creeping forward and using cover made it clear that they’d figured out someone in my area was targeting them. After setting aside my gun for a moment, I took the reflector out of my lantern and set it in the remaining window to my right. Satisfied, I went back to shooting bandits until I noticed every crew I saw was heading in our direction.

Soon, I couldn’t look through my scope without seeing a group of bandits approaching. As I counted them, my heart fluttered with the realization that at least half the group of bandits that we’d expected to attack the Enclave were now on their way to our location. Whoever had united them was pretty clever. Get the monsters to attack the Enclave, take out the snipers so more monsters make it into the Enclave, and then rush in once everyone was exhausted or most of the monsters had been destroyed. Simple and effective.

It was clear, though, that they hadn’t dealt with many Wayfinders, though. Or at least not big groups of them. As far as I could tell, most of the sniper nests were still operating and the ones that weren’t had likely stopped due to a lack of ammo rather than anything else. The bandits would have needed to send in more than six to ten people at once if they wanted to overwhelm our defensive positions and the groups clearly lacked much in terms of specific plans. They had communication between groups and a plan to take out sniper nests, but they just wandered around, looking into buildings, and approaching each nest they found with only their one small group since they never discovered that another group had already failed to take out the sniper nest.

Only after I got their attention did they all start to move like they had a plan. They all slowly started to converge on the building, moving from bit of cover to bit of cover. I took shots where I could, but I didn’t get many hits. I could still hear Natalie firing away several rooms down, so I started the second part of my plan. I pulled my gun and the reflector from my lantern away, packed up all my stuff, and turned on one of the walkie talkies I had in my pocket. I tied the communicate button down and dropped the little signal bomb at the edge of the room.

I sprinted back to Natalie’s side and started packing up all of our gear. As I clattered empty rifle magazines into my bags, Natalie looked over at me, a question in her eyes.

“Keep shooting, but let me know as soon as they start coming this way and how many of them do.”

“Marshall.” I turned away to grab the pile of magazines and loose ammo Tiffany had been combining during her down time. When I didn’t answer, Natalie spoke again. “What did you do, Marshall?”

“I turned on one of the walkie talkies we were given and tied the ‘talk’ button so it’d stay on.”

“What?”

“I am doing to the bandits converging on our position what they tried to do to us. They’ll surround the building, start trying to make their way up here, find the traps, try even harder, and then they’ll be surrounded by monsters.”

“So will we!” Natalie turned all the way around to face me. “Jumping to the next building won’t work when the monsters are here. They’ll just follow us! We won’t be able to sneak through the crowd of them even if they don’t spot us jumping to the next building.”

“Which is why we leave as soon as the bandits set off the first trap. I’m going to grab Tiffany, so just keep shooting. Keep track of how many of the monsters start coming our way.” I shoved the last of the magazines into a pack and then ran off down the hallway, almost bowling Tiffany over as she rounded a corner.

“Captain!”

“C’mon, Tiffany. We’re making the jump as soon as the first trap goes off.”

“What? What happened to making a glorious last stand here?”

I pulled her along with me, back to where Natalie was. “I’d rather take a chance at surviving since, if my plan works, it should buy the Enclave enough time to fix the hole in their wall.”

“What plan?”

Natalie appeared in the doorway to the blown out room we’d been using, lugging the packs behind here. “He set up a radio and every single monster not a part of the main press on the walls is heading our way. I estimate at least five hundred of them, and those are the ones directly west of us. I’m sure there are more to the north and south.”

“Cool.” I grabbed my pack, slung it on my back, and tightened all the straps until it was almost painfully gripping my chest. “Now let’s get ready to jump since the bandits won’t be far behi-”

The first explosion rocked the building, carrying with it the sound of shrieking metal. Tiffany shook her head and started toward what used to be a conference room with floor to ceiling windows. “Of course they went for the fire escape first.”

I helped Natalie get her pack on and then helped Tiffany tighten down her straps while we all jogged toward the spot we’d picked as our jump point. By the time we got there, another explosion had gone off and Tiffany was muttering a commentary on the bandit’s location as I sprinted toward the empty window pane and leapt.

I had a moment of open air and grey, cloudy sky as time stood still. I fought the urge to wave my arms and kept my body compact as I hung, exposed, in the air. Before my heart had a chance to sneak even one beat in, time came rushing back. The wind whistled in my ears, the light-grey blur of the mid-morning sky became the dark grey blur of an approaching ruined building, and I landed in the best roll that I could. I felt something give way as I made impact and then the grey faded to black as the world fell silent.