The Dry Earth (Book 2): The Nexus by Orion W.J

Author:Orion, W.J. [Orion, W.J.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Post-Apocalyptic | Dystopian
Publisher: Chris Philbrook
Published: 2020-02-10T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-Two

What Do You Get a Seventeen-Year-Old for Their Birthday?

Yasmine and Caleb’s crew from the city relocated their headquarters from Sturgeon Bay to the area they dubbed “Turbine Ridge.” They moved into their own tents and made new lean-tos. Knox somehow managed to climb the closest tower to sit atop its massive windmill and keep watch. With her one leg, she climbed up the ladder every morning and climbed back down it every evening, switching with Bernie.

Caleb shored up their defenses, not for real fear of being attacked, but out of boredom. With the Sturgeon crabs fed and watered from Trey’s stores and the supplies on their downed ship, they were reinvigorated and they threw in with all the assistance they were asked of. Most guarded Turbine Ridge or helped their small population of human wards tend to the meager crops that kept them an inch away from starvation.

After collecting the crab tech donations from the Sturgeon Bay resistance cell, Yasmine picked over the ruins, as she would. Following Trey’s instructions, she went up and down the peninsula with Michelle, gathering all the raw materials she could. DVD players, stereos, car parts; anything that Trey’s chassis nanites might be able to break down and repurpose into repair materials. She and Michelle were gone all night for many nights, searching the sparse towns of the narrow shard of land that poked into the dry lake beds.

Trey—of all of them—worked the hardest. Yasmine and Michelle would drop off three duffel bags of parts each and every night, and he’d put the contents straight into his repair process.

As she relaxed, Yasmine would watch him. He’d search through their loot with excited tentacles and happy, shuffling feet. Parts would get tossed left, right, or back as he assessed their value and sorted them into piles. There were many piles.

Trey would leave them and head back down into the gulley that the ship sat in. He’d stay there, face planted for hours against the area that needed repairs as his chassis vomited a near-invisible cloud of nanites onto the broken ship. The work they did happened so slowly that it seemed invisible to the naked eye; but over time, the changes were unmistakable.

“I’m so tired,” Yasmine said to Michelle as they woke in the later afternoon. The thin orange tent material drew out the worst of the sun’s poison, but the light and heat were inevitable. She wiped a bead of sweat from her forehead. The tent was hot. “We’ve been at this for ten days straight. All night, every night.”

“Maybe,” Michelle replied from the inside of her still-shut sleeping bag, “we should take a night off.”

“We can’t,” Yaz said, resting back on the slight blanket roll she used as a pillow. “Every day we waste here costs someone, somewhere, their lives.”

“You ever like, live in the present?” Michelle asked from inside her fabric cocoon. “Like, realize that you’ve done a lot already, and just enjoy the moment? A moment. Any moment? Just find a way to relax and exist?”

“Not lately, no.

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