Project Bastion: Chapter Eighteen

Hello! If your confused why this is being posted today, go ahead and read this post! 

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By the time we all sat down for dinner, I was so tired I could barely keep my head up. Barry made spaghetti and meatballs of all things, and even though the meatballs were the frozen kind, it still tasted like the best spaghetti dinner I had ever had. It was a bit strange, sitting in the dining room, sharing a meal with people I barely knew, the apocalypse all around us, but there was also a sense of understanding between each of us. We had survived, either by luck or by force of will and skill.

I barely remembered the rest of the night, but at some point, I made my way to my room, collapsing into my bed without even getting undressed. When I woke up the next morning, I quickly showered before getting changed into some of the expensive clothes I had salvaged from the tailors. The clothes were incredibly comfortable and obviously high quality, much better than the bargain bin stuff I was used to. When I was dressed and clean, I made my way down to the bottom floor. As I was walking down the stairs, Sally popped into existence next to me.

“Good morning Aiden,” She said, following behind me. “The others decided to let you sleep in. Barry and Jessica have already left to return to the high school. They hope to gather the food, clothes, and a few other necessities from their old home.”

“Right, fine. That's a good idea,” I said, giving Roger, who was sitting down at one of the tables, a nod. “How long have they been gone?”

“Almost two hours,” She responded. “Allowing for thirty minutes to gather their things, they should be returning shortly.”

I nodded as I opened the fridge, searching for a moment before grabbing an apple and taking a bite as I shut the door. As tempting as it was to savor and ration the real food that Sally had conjured up when making the bastion, most of it needed to be eaten in a few weeks. The construct assured me that the building had a preservation ability that would nearly double most of their foods shelf-life, but it was still better to eat it now than let it go to waste.

“Where are Alissa and Molly?” I asked Sally as I put together a cup of coffee.

“Molly is in her room, and Alissa is tending to Amelia,” The projected construct responded. “And before you ask, I haven't been able to connect to any new worlds. I got close last night but failed to find a balance stable enough to connect.”

I nodded and sat down at the same table as Roger, who I was beginning to realize was a man of few words. Or maybe he was too traumatized to really open up. I took a sip from my coffee before putting it down on the table.

“Alissa had a chance to look you over yet?” I asked, the quiet young man nodding.

“She did not long after you, Jessica, and Barry left to find medical supplies,” He responded with a nod. “Then she stitched me up after dinner. My wounds aren't as deep as Ms. Wensor’s, and none of them were bites...”

“Which would mean you didn't get poisoned,” I finished, nodding in understanding. “Okay. I’m going to go talk to Alissa, but when your friends get back, we can have our first team meeting to discuss our next steps.”

“Sure,” He responded with a shrug, already looking back down to the table, a half-eaten bowl of cereal in front of him.

He looked shell-shocked and broken.

I frowned, unsure what exactly I could say. It definitely looked like his current state was due to the trauma he had endured, which was honestly not surprising. Unfortunately, it also meant it was so far out of my wheelhouse that anything I could do or say would likely only make it worse. I had been doing okay so far, but in all honesty, I wasn't all that good at the whole comforting thing. Rather than say something dumb, I shook my head and made my way back up the stairs, softly knocking on the door I knew Jessica and Amelia were staying in.

“Come in,” Alissa’s voice said from the other side of the door, prompting me to push the thick slab of wood and iron open.

The room had changed a lot since I had last seen it, with several bits of medical equipment set up around one of the beds. An IV bag hung off the wall, a thin tube connected down to the still unconscious teacher. The blinds were closed, and the lights were on very low, giving the room a darker-looking interior. Alissa was leaning over Amelia's still unconscious form, sitting back down on a stool when she was done doing whatever she was doing.

“How’s the patient?” I asked, leaning against the doorframe.

“Better than before,” The injured nurse responded, looking away from her patient and at me. “Her fever is down, and her heart rate is up, though it's still low. Between the fluids, the meds, and the healing field around the bastion, she is clearly doing better. Whether that's going to be enough for her to live through the raptor venom is a different question, one I can't really answer. Kinda outside my experience.”

“That's better news than yesterday,” I pointed out, Alissa nodding in agreement. “How are you doing?”

“Good. My leg is healing faster than I anticipated, even with the healing field,” She admitted, looking down at her leg. “I’m hoping to be walking around without a limp in a day or two, and fully healed a few days after that.”

“And Roger?”

“Before all of this, I would have said he had about a month before he was fully healed, at minimum,” She explained, shaking her head. “But if my leg is anything to go off of, I’m hoping for around a week before he is fully healed.”

“That's good news,” I said with a nod. “When Jessica and Barry get back, I think we should have a team meeting, to get on the same page and talk about our next steps.”

“Sure, yeah. Just call up when it's starting,” She said, waving me off as she turned back to her patient, focusing on one of the readouts from a device sitting on the desk next to the bed.

I snorted and turned away from the room, closing the door behind me as I stepped back into the hall. Once I was alone, I ran my fingers through my hair, letting out a long breath. Sally, who had disappeared when I sat down with Roger, reappeared in front of me.

“Is everything alright?” She asked, bobbing slightly as she spoke.

“Yeah, I’ll be fine,” I assured her. “Just coming to terms with the fact that the more people that we rescue, the harder it's going to be to keep everyone happy and eager to let me lead.”

“Who else would lead?” She asked, clearly finding the idea silly. “I mean, it's not like I would let anyone else, even if I could. I picked you for a reason, after all.”

“Yeah, you scanned me or something, right?”

“Yup, you were the best candidate available!” She answered, her smile audible in her voice despite the fact that she had no real biological body. “I - Oh! Barry and Jessica just crossed back into my range.”

I nodded and headed down the stairs, through the kitchen, and out the front door. I spotted both of the returning young adults quickly, waving to them before heading down the bastion steps. By the time I reached the last steps down onto the grass, the two younger survivors were reaching the steps as well. Both of them were laden with stuff, carrying two duffel bags each, along with clearly stuffed full backpacks. I reached out and took one duffel from each of them to lighten their load.

“Welcome back. Run into any trouble?"

“No, it was quiet all the way there and back,” Barry responded, Jessica nodding in agreement. “How are things here?”

“Quiet as well.”

We headed back up the stairs, talking about what they brought back with them. The duffle bags were full of mostly food, sealed and shelf-stable stuff like rice, dried beans, and canned food, everything they had gathered before moving here. Barry also handed me a spear, which had been tied to his back alongside his own, which was now bent back into shape. The one he handed to me was made very similar to his own, with a thick point of metal, crudely made but still sharp, bolted and welded to the front end of the long metal pole.

“You seemed to use mine pretty well the other day, so I brought one of the spares,” He explained, leaning his own by the door after dropping his bags. “Seems better getting so close with a machete.”

“I agree. I’m glad I had yours when the raptors attacked,” I admitted, hefting the spear and testing its weight. “Thanks, this will come in handy.”

The weapon was on the heavy side, probably too heavy to throw with any sort of accuracy, but it was also clearly built to last. Considering just how hard I had to use Barry’s to even bend it slightly, I knew it was a tough, well-built tool. Already, I was considering how to wrap the center leather or rubber to help grip the pole better.

Once we offloaded all of the food, clothes, and other stuff, I sent Sally off to get Alissa, who limped down the stairs a few minutes later, taking a seat at the table. Barry put down cups in front of everyone before filling a pitcher with water and placing it down as well. He also took away Roger’s bowl of cereal, which was mostly finished.

“Alright. So this kind of meeting isn’t always going to be possible, so I figure we should take advantage of it while we still can.”

“What do you mean?” Barry asked, sipping his water, playing idly with the cup while he looked at me.

“I mean, I’m hoping to have a lot of people living here eventually,” I explained. “Right now, the bastion might seem like just a safe place with a couple of interesting perks, but if what Sally tells me is true, this place has the potential to put us back on the top of the food chain, even with all the fucked up monsters around. It's just a matter of time.”

“We need to survive that long first,” Jessica pointed out, Barry frowning at his bluntness. “The odds aren't exactly in our favor.”

“They’re a lot better than yesterday,” Barry countered. “It's rough, but now we can use electronics here, we heal faster, the food lasts longer, and monsters won't just stumble on us… just imagine what Aiden will unlock next!”

Out of all the newcomers, or at least the latest newcomers, Barry adapted to the idea of the bastion and Sally the quickest. He was more familiar with the idea of the system apocalypse than me, having read a lot more books from the genre. To him, this was a story coming true, and even if the story was much more bleak than he was used to, we,l as the good guys, would obviously come out on top eventually.

“It's a middle ground between both of you,” I said, patting Barry’s back. “There is hope, but we need to put in the work, and we need to be careful. What we do right now and the choices we make could mean the difference between the bastion flourishing or collapsing. Which is why I called the team meeting.”

Everyone nodded in understanding, even Roger. Sally, who was bouncing above my shoulder, drifted around the exterior of the group, circling the table slowly.

“So what's the next step?” Jessica asked, Barry nodding at her question.

“Gathering stuff. Anything that could be useful,” I answered easily. “All three of our objectives: survival, jump rewards, and gathering survivors all depend on us having the right tools for the job.”

“Like weapons,” Jessica answered.

“Weapons, radio’s, food, protection, anything that will let us protect ourselves and support anyone who we find,” I corrected. “Plus, we need to get out there and find more people. We can’t depend on people just coming to us.”

“We could if we got a radio,” Barry pointed out. “We could reach out to people who are listening.

“That's a good idea, even though I'm not sure how many people will have working radios,” I said with a nod. “I would say we should go to the police station, but that's where I found Alissa and Molly. It's already been looted pretty heavily.”

“What… what about Crazy Abe?” Roger said hesitantly, Barry and Jessica both seeming to recognize the name.

“Who is that?” I asked, frowning as I tried to recall hearing that name before.

“He’s a doomsday prepper,” Barry responded, starting to smile. “Lives on the outskirts of town, owns a good plot of land with his whole house fenced off. My parents… My parents talked about him a few times.”

Barry stumbled over mentioning his parents, cutting through his excitement a bit. He continued, though, turning to me when I spoke up after.

“Okay, what's the likelihood he has what we need?” I asked. “I’ve never heard of him before so I can't really say…”

“It's about as likely as anywhere else,” Jessica admitted. “But, if he is still alive, we are likely to get shot if we get too close.”

“With how many people dusted? Probably not alive…” Alissa pointed out. “I haven't lived here in a long time, so I don't know about him either. How much of this reputation was just high school rumors?”

She gave Barry and Roger pointed looks, before looking over at Jessica. The oldest of the young adults gave her a serious nod before speaking up.

“Amelia knew of him, I know she mentioned him before,” She explained. “He is a frequent talker at the town meetings, very anti-government. The conspiracy theory type. He liked to brag about his house and how anyone who wasn't preparing for the end times was an idiot.”

“So he is an idiot, too,” I pointed out. “Well, if everyone knows about it, chances are someone has cleared it out already.”

“But it's worth checking at least,” Barry insisted. “Plus, there are a few stores in that direction that might have some useful stuff anyway.”

I leaned back in my chair, considering the idea. It was tempting, for sure. Finding a significant chunk of what we needed in one place would be a huge boon, though it would likely take multiple trips to gather everything if this Crazy Abe was anything like they were describing.

“How far outside the main town does he live?” I asked. “Cause we are going to need to walk there while avoiding whatever monsters are in the area.”

“...It would be a pretty long walk,” Barry admitted with a frown. “Maybe two hours?”

“That’s a long way to be outside. Especially if we start heading into territory with new monsters.”

“What about taking bicycles?”

All of us collectively turned to look at the stairs, where Molly was sitting, clearly listening to the meeting. I could see Alissa looked annoyed, but I couldn't help but feel a bit of excitement.

“Bikes... would make the process quicker,” I admitted. “Damn, we could have been moving around the town in bikes this whole time!”

“We wouldn't be able to carry as much,” Jessica pointed out, though she still seemed excited at the idea. "Carrying duffle bags while riding a bike sounds like a good way to break something."

“Just getting there and back quickly would be enough," I countered. "A full backpack each is enough to justify the trip if it only takes an hour.”

“There's a bike shop down the road,” Barry pointed out, his previous excitement now bubbling over. “Anything we could possibly need will be there!”

“Damn…. Well, thank you Molly. It sounds like we have a plan,” I said. “First step… get some bikes.”