My Waves

So, in order to keep things from becoming too much of a wall of text, I’m splitting this up into three parts. Any of my higher-ups reading this should go through all three if they want the full report.

The Towerborn escaped in a roughly northeastern direction from our establishment. After getting the necessary Newborn-hunting supplies, I checked to see where he could have run off to hide and discovered one town quite a distance away. It was either hiding in that town or it had escaped into the Tower proper, in which case I was screwed until he decided to pop up again.

A quick flyby confirmed what the map had told us, that this town was the closest thing to our base, and that if the Towerborn was hiding anywhere in reality, it was here.

I parachuted outside of the town, and walked in armed with my cane and a small, Spiderman-esque acidthrower. The plan was to search the area for a place where an injured Towerborn was likely to rest and restore itself, and then wash it with acid until it was dead or immobilized.

The first thing I noticed was that while this town looked passable from the sky, it wasn’t very big at all. After a quick walk around, I found a town hall, a bar, a church, and a lot of squat, featureless buildings. It looked like a set from those old westerns, down to the empty streets and hostile atmosphere.

I figured the hall was the most likely place to find enough technology for a recovering Towerborn, and so I searched it. I checked every room, from the offices on the first floor to the mayor’s room. Not only did I find the place untouched, I found it completely deserted. The entire building was teeming with evidence of inhabitants, the seats were warm, the computers were running, but there was neither hide nor hair of the workers. Even the mayor’s office was deserted, a stack of papers half-filled out. Needless to say, I left the town hall as quickly as I could.

I did another sweep of the town, trying to find some sort of warehouse or storage facility, but I had given up by the time the sun had begun its descent.

My next idea was to check the bar, if for nothing else than to ransack it and enjoy a little drink while figuring out how to explain this to the bosses. The bar, however, was not empty. The tables were filled with people who eyed me silently at my entrance. These were working men, blue collar workers, and for the first time I realized how out of place I looked in my uniform. It was no longer clean or perfect, but in comparison to the trappings of the people around me, I must have looked like a CEO. A CEO who just walked into a bar in the middle of a hick town in Texas. A shudder ran down my spine as I took one of the two open seats at the bar and signaled the barkeeper for a drink.

I don’t know how long I sat there, just staring at the liquid. I lost track of the world around me, the noises disappearing slowly until I was lost in the silence of my own thoughts. I had just wrapped my hand around the mug to take the first sip, when I heard the door close, and the footsteps of another person who walked up and took the seat next to me. I glanced over. The man wore a ratty, dirty leather jacket that looked like it had once been a very nice possession. He spoke to the bartender for a bit before turning to me.

“Yer havin trouble here, bucko.”

He didn’t say it like a question. It was a statement, as grounded in fact as the color of the sand outside. I didn’t say a word in response. He ran his gloved hand over his messy hair, and I realized that something about him just struck me as odd in this place.

“Of course yer havin trouble. City slicker such as yerself don’t just walk into town and get answers. Not here, anyway. No sir, these fine people demand a price for their answers.”

“What do you want?” I finally responded.

“I don’t want nothin. I don’t want nothin at all. But ya see, that ain’t what I’m gonna get, cause you brought yer trouble down here. Or yer trouble brought you. Either way, there’s hell to pay fer yer tresspassin.”

“Tresspassing?”

“Listen, we don’t take kindly to yer kind around here. Here, we’ve gotten ourselves a nice little equilibriem with each udder. You, and your ilk, are jest the kinda people to go and ruin that. And we don’t want that, no sirree.”

The man brought out a small box from inside his coat and placed it on the table. I caught a hint of yellow on the back of his glove as he pulled it back into his pocket. The bartender took the box from off the table and stored it underneath the counter.

“Now I dunno what brought you here to this neck of the woods, but if I were you I would leave, and let your little outpost fall to whoever is messing with it. I’d highly recommend not coming back, either. See, these people have a LONG memory.”

He stood up and tilted his hat towards the bartender.

“Pleasure doin business with ye, barkeep.”

“A pleasure as always, friend.”

The first words spoken by a resident of this godforsaken town. Five words was all it took, five distant, uncomfortable words. I was staring absentmindedly at my drink before but now I was at full attention. Out here, in the middle of the desert, any liquid at all is appreciated. Contaminate the bar, and you’ve contaminated the city.

I looked up at the bartender, and the bartender looked back at me. I felt the eyes of each and every man in the building on my head. I was stupid. I hadn’t prepared for something like this.

The roar of the stranger's motorcycle became the alarm for my escape. I bolted towards the door, over chairs and tables, the eyes of the townspeople calmly following me in my flight. It was only when I reached the door that they moved, in unison, like a finely tuned army. I heard the deafening shuffle of every chair in that bar as the customers rose from their seats. Outside, the hot sun beat down on the town where I now had to escape. The once empty streets were already filled. The town that seemed deserted and hostile was now fully angry.

I picked a random direction that wasn’t already cut off and ran. I ran from the town, and I ran as far as I possibly could before I realized how lost I had made myself.

I need to rest. The next part will go up later.

- Have a Nice Day