Participants:
| Scene Title | Bloody Refreshing |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Even in the apocalypse, people find a way of surprising one another in a conversation over a grisly task. |
| Date | July 5, 2021 |
In many parts of the United States, the highway is good for two things: driving fast and eating fast food. The common denominator, naturally, is speed. Get going, don’t stop unless emergency strikes in the form of vehicular accident, act of God, or crying child who Can’t Hold It Anymore. Even the ambush, for what it was, had a speed to it, and now, as the Sun sinks lower into the sky and the inappropriately bluish cast of light develops tweaks of its opposite gold, there are tasks to be done. But the vehicles are slowed, the bodies are warm, and the tone now is slow - slow to recuperate, slow to decide, slow to make use of what is left.
The Green Lantern
Somewhere in Fucking Ohio
Erin Gordon has had a hell of a day. They all have, of course. Hers was, compared to those whose lives have been taken or those who have taken lives, pretty easy. Rubble insulates, in its way. The mourning has happened, and will continue to happen, but right now, still vibrating from the anxious energy whose absence kept her alive but needed to come out eventually, there are tasks to be done. Distractions to be had. Hands to use.
Outside of The Green Lantern, which appears to be the World’s Most Ohio greasy spoon, prolific and iconic concrete benches abound. These benches are the sort of conglomerate rock-adjacent solid that forms a donut for seating, the sort of rocky bench that you can feel the jagged chunks of miscellaneous stones of clear through the seat of your pants and absolutely indented into your butt cheeks, a table with an equally scratchy table attached straight into its donut hole, the sort seen outside of every shady ice cream stand every summer in the ‘90s. But its umbrella, surely the cheapest available and probably that horrible green canvas, is gone. Part of the pole is sticking out of the depression in the center of the tabletop, but who can say the fate of its shade? Perhaps it’s better this way.
Still, the rough texture and gravelly surface is perfect for the sort of job she’s ambled into: cleaning foraged weaponry. She plants herself onto the bench - sure enough, the chunks of possible asphalt poured into the mold is already itchy through her jeans - and wedges her legs in under the attached table, one at a time. There are knives here with blemishes of unknown origin. There are guns of unknown make. These are things an agricultural scientist tends not to be aware of, but when foraging, one cannot complain of the spoils.
A bucket of water gleams an unsavory murky red at Nick Ruskin’s feet as he uses it to rinse the rags employed to wipe the exteriors of the weapons from blood and God knows what else. It’s a disgusting job but one that needs to be done if they want to add the arsenal to their own inventory.
“Didn’t expect anyone else to sign up for this job,” he says, as he rises to put the rifle he’s been cleaning over in the ‘done’ pile. He selects another from the haul, grimacing a little as his hand wraps around the sticky stock. Sitting back down, he lays the weapon across the top of the concrete table, and dips the rag he’s using – repurposed flannel from one of the dead – in the bucket to dampen it.
“You used to this sort of thing, or…?” His brows lift as he looks up at her questioning.
“Not in the slightest!” Erin replies brightly. “I’ve only ever touched guns to shoot cans in the backyard while drunk on the Fourth of July, which is probably not the most accurate environment. But this whole thing has been a learning experience, honestly.”
She picks a nice, simple knife gingerly from the pile, grabs a similarly repurposed flannel, and pours some of the water from her canteen onto it. Just a little, enough to spread throughout the whole thing to moisten the fabric enough to remove the grit.
“I do know how to take care of kitchen knives, though. So maybe that’s the best start. You don’t want to leave the water on it or it’ll rust…which…” She pauses. “Can blood cause rust? There are a lot of things I’ve never thought about before this week.”
Wiping placidly, smearing the gunk more than removing it, she instead dips the rag into the filthy bucket, rings it out, and tries again.
“I didn’t sign up for this job, though. I just figured it was something to do with my hands. What, uh, vehicle were you in? I’m not sure we’ve met.”
The answer draws a chuckle from Nick as he cleans the new rifle; he’s clearly used to handling weapons, operating with a deft efficiency that comes with experience.
“It does,” is a simple answer to the question ‘can blood cause rust.’ “It can be hard to tell what’s the dried blood and what’s the rust or whatnot. With a blade, soaking them in some vinegar’ll can sort them. Little harder to do with a rifle, though, innit.”
The Brit turns the rifle over to work the other side. “The bus, Fraggle or whatever they’re calling it. You were in the ambulance, yeah, that got buried? That had to have been a bloody nightmare. Lucky to walk away from that.”
“You’re not kidding,” Erin sighs, pausing the inefficient smearing and staring into the distance for a moment. “I didn’t think we were goners, necessarily, but I won’t lie and say that I have any experience in this sort of situation. Then again, I’ve also never traveled cross-country in a convoy, or been to Alaska, or-” and she waggles the knife a bit, “-cleaned artillery or weapons, so you know, first time for everything.”
She looks back down and puts a bit more effort into the cleaning of the blade, holds it to the light, checks both sides, and places it aside in what will become her own Done pile. After checking in vain for a vinegar spray bottle, she hesitantly grabs a handgun from the Not Done pile, flicks what she believes is the safety into what she believes is On, and looks back up at Nick.
“Do you … know what happened? Why the cave-in happened at all? Nobody has briefed me on anything after we got everyone out, and I’m not part of this network thing, so I figured I’d ask someone above ground…”
Glancing up at the hesitation, Nick reaches for the gun, deftly turning it in his hands so he can pull out the magazine and set it aside, then hands it back to Erin, and returns to his own wiping of the rifle in his hands.
“Think they rigged the overpass to blow,” he says, dipping the murky rag he holds into the murky water. ”Heard and saw an explosion just as everything went to shit. Sounded like multiple charges. They have that firecracker up in Scout, but from what I’ve pieced together, her explosions came after that initial blow.”
He shakes his head, turning to look at where the convoy vehicles rest in their various states of disrepair caused by the attack. “If I wasn’t pissed off at being shot at, I’d feel bloody sorry for them. The chances of hitting a group with this many of you special sorts? Pretty fuckin’ low. They were dead before they even started, but didn’t know it.”
Nick juts his chin in her direction as he turns the rifle over to clean the other side. “You a medic or something, before the flood?” he wonders, given her choice to be in the no-longer operational ambulance.
Erin listens, gratefully accepting the deconstructed weaponry, using it to work out her questions by cleaning it to as spotless as it possibly can be with her skills and crummy rags. “That’s…yeah, you know, I’ve asked a few people what happened and I’m getting some different answers. Some think it was random and for the supply load. Others think other things. You’re the first one who has expressed borderline empathy at how unlucky they really were.” She smirks at him and goes back to picking muck out of the grooves in the handle of the grip.
“But no, I wasn’t. Honestly, I just prefer smaller crowds. It’s easy to get lost and have things move past you in the bigger ones. Also, I have a dog-”
She looks up and around for a moment. Colin is not present. She shakes her head and continues.
“He is apparently not present right now. I know he made it out, he nearly pulled a Lassie when we were in there, so he’s probably trying to comfort some crying person or something. He is much better at that than I am. So no, definitely not a medic. I’m an academic, actually. My background is in agriculture, I try to work on how to safely and efficiently amend soil so that you can grow more in smaller and atypical spaces. What about you?”
Nick too looks for the dog, but chuckles a little at the compliment that he, like Colin, is empathetic. “I don’t know if I’d call it empathy on my part. More pity, I guess, paired with a healthy portion of disdain for their lack of foresight, I reckon.”
He rises to discard the rifle he’s cleaned in the done pile – his done pile isn’t quite as immaculate as Erin’s. He grabs another one from the dirty pile to bring back to the concrete table.
“That’s important work. Were you already on that path when the flood hit, or did the flood take you to that path?” he wonders, leaving untouched for the moment the question of what occupation once filled his days.
Erin dimly registers the dodge, but most people cannot help talking about themselves, so she presses on. “Thanks. I was, actually. The ability I’ve always had is to sort of be able to phase in and out of things –” She cuts herself off briefly, and then weighs that at this point, there is no reason to continue the pretense that she has no ability even after a lifetime of training to suppress its existence, and so she carries on, “— and that seems to have to do with density. I’m not sure how it works, to be honest. But when you consider the idea of density in soil, it can give you some keys as to what components are making up that soil. And when you know exactly what’s in your soil, you know how to amend it properly, and so on…”
She gets caught up in a particularly stubborn bit of gravel caught in the tiny grooves, and picks up one of the smaller knives to try and wedge it out, fully aware that this is not the best use of time.
“I always liked nature, growing up in New York and not having access to it, so when I went to college and found out that I was good at chemistry and physics, it just made sense. Even before the flood, there were a lot of food deserts, y’know?” A sardonic chuckle. “I don’t even know if there are any deserts remaining, per se. But anyway, what about you?”
Nick’s mouth tips up at the corners when she realizes she’s giving away more than she’s used to, but he doesn’t seem shocked. While the convoy is large, it’s not that large, and stories travel about what happened to who in what vehicle.
He huffs a chuckle at the question of deserts as he flips the rifle over to work the other side – he isn’t nearly as meticulous as she is, but he’s kind enough not to point out she’s wasting her time on the details. After all, not many people are willing to wipe blood off of weapons and not complain.
The rerouted path back to what he does or did draws up the other corner of his mouth and he shakes his head. “Most likely you’ll hear it at some point so may as well be for me. I was with the Vanguard. My sister Lee and me, we were raised by wolves, so to speak,” he says quietly, glancing at Erin’s face to watch for the familiar recoil of shock or distrust. “We left it, though, ran Palisades Sill for a time… until we didn’t.”
“You know, I’m going to be honest,” Erin says, tilting her head to look at Nick in a way reminiscent of Colin, “I wasn’t around for a lot of the internal politics and regional drama when the Flood began. I didn’t arrive until relatively recently. I was from the City originally, but I’d been upstate going to college and then had settled in Ithaca for my doctorate in 2007. So when the flood began, and the world kept trying to continue… well, you know, I had my head in the very literal sand trying to keep doing my work.”
She looks around for a moment before continuing, gesturing at the probably very ordinary former burger stand that the two are currently utilizing for their purposes. “I know society has largely broken down, but I think we tried to pretend it wasn’t doing just that for far too long. It makes you wonder how long ago this place was still serving its shitty roadside food. Cornell might still be operating, for all I know. I moved down here after a few years because it seemed like a better and more useful place to be with my skill set. Working in a lab gets boring after a while. You start to feel like one of those mice the medical school probably works on.”
Realizing the futility of picking gravel out of handguns, she passes it back to Nick for reassembly and awaits another set of deconstructed gun bits. “My point is, I’m not here to judge. You say ‘Vanguard,’ I think heartworm medication. You’re here, so you’re here. I appreciate not having to figure out how to disassemble these things myself because I would probably end up shot in the gut. Is…your sister with us?”
“I guarantee you it’s not,” Nick says about Cornell with an amused smirk as he rises to drop the rifle in the done pile and grabs another one.
At this, Erin looks unsurprised.
As he settles onto the concrete slab bench, he watches Erin, brows creasing as he studies her face, trying to decide if she’s simply trying to be diplomatic or if there’s something else at play – or if he should take her words at face value. Finally he laughs, shaking his head. “You’re about as pure as that pup of yours, duck. It’s bloody refreshing.” Dabbing his flannel rag in the mucky bucket, he sets about wiping down the new rifle.
“No, to your last question.” It’s blunt and to the point, and something that obviously he doesn’t want to talk about, given the twitch in his jaw. “You may not be here to judge, cheers for that, but we can’t have you wandering around like a babe in the woods without knowing who done you wrong, can we? So here’s your history lesson for the day. Sentinel – they’re the ones wot attacked the Pelago a few years back, hunters of the special ones like you. They’re what became of the Vanguard. Vanguard are the ones wot caused the flood, and not by an accident.”
Nick keeps wiping the rifle down, but his gaze stays on her face, waiting perhaps for its expression to change to one less kind in regards to him.
Erin laughs a little and shrugs. “Well, you know your way around a gun, and now I see why. But honestly – Nick, was it? – after being trapped under some rubble and having to unbury myself and everyone else and hearing that people have died and seeing someone get crushed with some stone, this is possibly the least stressful thing I’ve heard all day. I won’t pretend it’s not awkward to be like ‘hey, oh, you used to be with the bad guys? Oh and you have to tell me that? Oh, I’m a big fucking dummy? Shit, my bad,’ but your straightforwardness on the matter is fucking refreshing, to be honest with you.”
The former Vanguardian grins at her words, and shakes his head. “You’re not dumb. It’s not like my face is plastered all over the news, is it? Some people know, and others don’t, and I didn’t want you to feel like you were left out of the loop, luv.”
The rifle gets dropped in the done pile but Nick doesn’t pick up another just yet; instead he stretches, cricking his neck one way and than the other. “Now, I ain’t been the bad guy for a long time – spent quite a bit of time being the ‘opportunistic charming asshole’ over in the Sill, being an ’ave and takin’ maybe more’n our share from the ’ave-nots, but that’s done now too, so I’m just gettin’ by with the rest of the world.”
He flashes a grin at her. “When our hands aren’t contaminated with god knows how many blood-borne pathogens, I’ll owe you a drink. We’ll toast to bloody refreshing honesty and innocence. I’d say you’ve been the bright spot in my day, but I’m afraid that’s a low bar to reach today, yeah?”
Putting down the flannel rag, Erin pats herself down for a canteen or water bottle. Finding it, attached to her belt, she uses the inside of the bottom of her tee shirt to unscrew it and tilts it towards him. “I’ll toast to that. And I’ll hold you to it, too. But I actually do have some beer somewhere in the convoy, if it got saved, so drink’s on me.”