You withdraw from your Chakra quickly, allowing the layers of intertwined powers to spin down and peel back and fade away. As they recede, your conscious self rises up to meet your physical body, allowing your eyes to open and your ears to listen and your blood to flow once again.
Along comes the sensations of sight and sound and touch - the very vibrations of the earth around you. You fill into your physical self like a glove, a very comfortable one at that.
The sensation of doing so is deeply satisfying.
When your vision comes back into focus, you watch as Lisa also rouse from being knocked out. She groans as her eyes wink open, then she looks around the room with understandable confusion. While she searches around her like a hawk, she attempts to wriggle around and move. But when she realizes that she's tied up very well, she stops struggling altogether.
Then her eyes land on you, and her lips purse from annoyance as a result.
"You. I shoulda known you'd be that good," she says. "Or I mighta had you shot while you slept."
"I could say something similar about you," you reply. "I could still do it."
"Then why don'tcha?"
"'Coz it isn't up to me."
"Coward."
"Oh, so you'd rather just die, then? I could wipe you out, just like that. Then walk outta town like nothing happened. But I won't. 'Coz I respect the people in your town. Something you ought to do more of."
Lisa scowls horrendously, but she doesn't otherwise reply. It makes you wonder if she's actually contemplating suicide. Maybe she's wrestling with being a prisoner and coming to terms with it. Or perhaps she's poring over some undiscovered third choice somewhere out there. Whatever it is, you can't tell. Her thoughts and emotions are like glass - slick and impenetrable. Your ability to Scan her is almost completely repelled.
Clearly, the first thing she did on waking was raise all her defenses. Her full defenses.
Well, at least you can still tell how much energy she has, and which discipline, though a part of you wonders if that's true at all. If she can hide whatever she wants, then she ought to be skilled enough to reveal whatever she wants.
In the end, you can't trust what you're sensing about her. But at least you still know her limits - she can't possibly hide that while unconscious. Right?
It takes time, but her face settles back to what you would consider normal, at least minus the smile. Now her expression is mostly deadpan with hints of annoyance, and slivers of hostility.
"You wouldn't mind untying me, wouldja?" she asks you.
There's venom in her voice, of course. It's almost like she's tempting you into a fight. Either way, her being bound up or not hardly matters. All it is right now is a security blanket.
Best shed it off altogether.
"Do it yourself," you reply, but with a hint of sarcasm buried in it.
She sneers, but you sense low levels of telekinesis weave through her. Though her movements are careful and slow, she manages to loosen the rope around her wrists. Once they're halfway undone, she simply slips out of them, then focuses her energies on the rope around her ankles.
The same thing happens there, but she undoes the knots all the way through, then flings both cuts of paracord into the corner. Her face wrinkles in disgust at them.
Lisa then swings her legs over, sits at the edge of the bed, then massages one of her shoulders - the one she had been laid down on. She then rolls her arm a bit to loosen her aching deltoid. Soft groans escape her lips at the same time.
"Didn't have to tie me up, yannow?" she says after a minute. "Not like I'm overpowering anyone anytime soon."
"Wasn't my decision," you reply.
"And what was your decision?"
"Not my town, not my deal."
Lisa gives a soft 'hmph', as though she had been expecting a different response. You shrug at her noncommittally. That's the truth, and if she doesn't believe it, then that's on her… Her doubt makes you realize that she can't read your surface thoughts and emotions either. So at least you're even there.
Some silence sits between the both of you, most likely because the both of you are busy reading each other, gauging each other. Trying to figure out how to stay one step ahead of the other.
"So what're they talking about out there?" she asks after a few moments.
"What to do with you," you answer plainly.
You don't need to tune your own ears to hear since you're still connected to Noir. She's still feeding you her perceptions through the Network. Though you have them dimmed and muted and numbed, they're still there at the back of your mind.
You raise the volume a bit, just enough to hear what's going on with Frank and the townsfolk. Someone yells out a resolution, to which the town votes. A chorus of Yeas and Nays echo into the air, one group shortly after the other.
They sound relatively even to you. Maybe the Yeas have an edge? You can't quite tell, not without turning more of your conscious self towards the incoming feed.
With Lisa awake, you'd rather not.
Either way, you turn your focus back on the psion in front of you, who stops trying to hear and instead raises her feet back on the bed. She then scoots backwards towards the pillows and leans on them casually, allowing her body to visibly relax. It's almost as though she holds herself up all of the time, and now allows herself to simply let down everything.
You sense her defenses lower to some degree, and slivers of her thoughts and emotions waft into the air around you.
"They better not wanting to be killing me," she sighs aloud. There's a hint of worry in there, but you don't exactly trust it.
You wonder if you should tell her what they've been discussing, particularly leaving her here to die by herself. But you also wonder if her knowing that matters at all.
Though it seems to you that she's partially given up, that her kicking back is also her giving in, you don't believe her. You simply can't. You have to believe that she's saving up energy so that she can make some kind of move.
And even if she resigns herself to whatever fate the townspeople have for her, once you're gone she'll be free to do whatever she wants. If they decide to exile her, it doesn't stop her from following after and… wiping their minds or something.
"Sadly, no," you say with a disapproving sigh. "They don't want anyone dead. The only ones who do want people dead are in here, with you."
"Who says I wanted anyone dead?" she says. "If I did, I would've pointed my sidearm at someone too."
You get a sense that she's not answering you, not really. Rather, she's testing out her defense. You can just about hear her playing with the tones in the words, all in her head, just inside of her surface thoughts.
It injects a level of doubt into you, about what to trust and what not to. But you're able to push it away and resolve to not trust a single thing that Lisa says. Anyone who hides as much as she does… well, either she has problems or she's up to something.
You bet it's probably some awful mix of the two.
Instead, you chuckle lightly in response, which causes her nose to crinkle in annoyance. But it's gone a second later.
"You and I both know that guns just aren't our best tools," you say. "They're powerful, sure. They'll end lives, sure. But they're also loud and crude and just not subtle at all. What you and I have got is something way better than that, on just about every level. Which means you most certainly had your gun up, only most people didn't see it. Well, at least one of us can see it, anyway."
Her face remains positively still, though you can sense her frustration rise up ever so slightly.
Of course, you have no idea if she did do anything like that during your standoff, if she had summoned up lethal psionic energies. You were much more focused on everyone else around you. Their guns, too. And, of course, you were focused on developing your Temporal Acceleration. If she was doing anything shady at that moment… well, you have no clue.
But it doesn't matter if it's true or not, or whether she believes you think it's true or not. What matters is that she's bogged down in those questions.
"Doesn't mean it aint' a good tool," she rebukes. "Psion or not, it's still something I like using. It's still plenty enough damage to end a person facing you down."
She makes a soft 'bang' noise as she fires a finger gun aimed at your chest. The recoil launches her hand up, as though the round is a truly powerful one.
You can't deny how true her statement is. Having psionic powers might be a superior multi-tool, but the gun itself is still an extremely effective single-purpose tool. It's highly capable of tearing into flesh and shattering bone and ripping up organs, and it hardly matters if the target is psionic or not.
Still, it's not like psions are defenseless.
"You don't think Telekinesis could stop bullets?" you ask plainly.
She looks at you with a shocked face, as though she's never thought of a TK Shield before, but she wipes that away quickly as well. Although you want to believe her, most of you is certain that this is an act. Many, but not all, incoming shards from your Foresight confirms it so.
You wonder if she's selling it hard because Telekinesis might be one of her stronger powers. Or it's entirely possible that she merely wants you to think that, to lull you towards a specific defense. Or maybe it's like the questions you fling at her, where they're designed to take up valuable time in your thoughts.
You ultimately come to the conclusion that it doesn't matter what she has. There's no way to guess, simply because of her nature. Instead, you focus on yourself, and resolve to remain as flexible as you can the moment she inevitably does make a move. If you can manage to redirect whatever she does, you might be able to counter her somehow.
At least, that's the best you can hope. Could end up a slug match, you never know. Even the shards from your Foresight reveal all kinds of possible outcomes, too many to pick and choose and maneuver through. Every tiny choice counts, and numerous tiny choices lead in different directions.
It certainly worries you that so few of those shards reveal calm and peaceful moments. Could mean that your future is going to be rather colorful soon enough.
A chant erupts from outside, and it's loud enough that you and Lisa can hear it. The words are muffled, but it's clear what many seem to want. Perhaps more importantly, what they're saying bleeds through the wood. They're muffled, but you can hear them plainly.
The blood runs from your face as the words pass through your ears, even as Lisa's face contorts into a rather smug and satisfied smile.
You hear Frank yell at everyone to calm down. Then you hear his boots click and clunk their way towards you, and stop just outside the door. He greets you solemnly as he enters the room, then immediately after looks squarely at Lisa with a hard grimace etched on his face.
"You're free to go," he says. From his tone, you can tell that he did not want to say those words in the slightest.
Lisa however looks absolutely joyful, without the least bit of surprise. She swings her legs back over the edge, then pushes herself up on her feet. Her grin hardly leaves her face, even as she wordlessly walks out of the room.
"How? Why?" you ask Frank as you leap up from your chair. "I thought the town wanted to exile her!"
He turns back towards you with his eyes dark and dull.
"They're all free to go," he says, avoiding your answer. "The township has decided to split into two, according to popular vote. And the half that demanded to go southwards also internally voted to include Lisa, Carl, and Chris into their ranks. Said they would help keep them safe…"
He looks back through the doorway, just as Lisa ducks out of the Lodge. You hear some cheering to celebrate her freedom, though you sense that most of the crowd are already dispersing.
"Well at least they're leaving," you reply. "Means that half your town'll still be here. At least you're not leaving, right? At least you've got the good half!"
"That's just it - we can't exactly stay now."
Frank sits down on the bed's edge and exhales at length. It's clear he's worn out by everything, on every level. This has been his only moment to stop and think and rest. But the moment he feels is as heavy as before.
"At half our people, and at half our guns, no way could we fight off another ganger attack," he says. "And from what we've seen, they've only been getting bigger and bolder each time. We wouldn't last the next. And if we did, we wouldn't last the one after that. We've gotta move, too."
That same heaviness seems to press down on you now as well. It isn't just because of what Frank's told you just now. It's also because you realize that Lisa outmaneuvered you.
You had been expecting to fight her all this time, maybe fling broken concrete and shattered glass at each other. Actually bring the building down on your heads, that sort of thing. But it turns out that wasn't her move.
Her move wasn't to confront you at all. It was to manipulate the townspeople, to manipulate their vote. What began as the majority of them wanting to exile her, ended with half of them embracing her instead. Realizing what she's done frustrates you deeply.
Of course, you have no idea how she performed it. You couldn't read her energies with any semblance of accuracy. Hell, you could barely tell she was using any at all. Though you could make an educated guess…
A Network, maybe?
No, a Network, definitely. A hidden one, just like yours. She must have used that to Orchestrate their vote and secure her freedom. If not that, then something like that.
A curse escapes your lips - you should have expected this kind of misdirection from her. You should have at least expected her Network to be stronger than yours, and for her to be far more devious than you first thought. She's the town mayor, after all. Those kinds of thoughts and energies likely come naturally to her.
"At least we do got a bright side," Frank continues. "I told them what you told me about your dad, and that he's got a community just like ours, and he's taking them to some kinda safe haven up north. So that's where we've decided to go, too. I mean, if he's got a kid as good as you, then he can't be half bad himself, right?
"Anyway, It's gonna be a hard road, we're all sure. Real dangerous for regular folk like us - we'd be up against who knows what out there, and not all of us are gonna make it. So some of us were hoping that you could come with us, help keep us safe, help make sure most of us make it where we're going."
~~~
Hope you're enjoying the story! Please check out my other work - linktr.ee/ceritusorbis
Days pass at the township, as the residents attempt to pick themselves up and leave the town, as they all recover from their shared trauma, as they move forward as best they can. The town itself has been completely upturned, not just because so much of it is now covered in countless bullet holes and dried blood. It's also because the sounds of life that previously surrounded it are more or less gone. Or at least, diminished.
The barn has long since been emptied and its gates opened. Some of the chickens and goats have gone out into their usual feeding fields to do their daily thing, though most have already wandered into the woods further and have made new lives out there.
You like to imagine that they're all doing their own kind of walkabout, each in their own ways. Hopefully chickens and goats are capable of finding enlightenment in the first place.
The southern side of the town is relatively empty and quiet, too. Most of the occupied houses have been opened up and cleared of everything useful and valuable and memorable. And everything unwieldy or heavy or impractical are left wherever they're found.
Even the shops that circle around the Town Square have been emptied out. Since everything they hold are among the most valuable items in the town, most have been packed away for later. The only things left in the shops are scraps, dust, and other useless detritus.
Thankfully, the Town Square itself is relatively lively. Just about everyone from the town is here - or at least the forty or so that didn't leave for the Fortress. Most are resting wherever there's shade, and the rest lug around sacks or crates of various things into the square itself.
Everyone's geared up for the long hike northward and have donned their most rugged gear and largest packs. Not that the townsfolk are carrying all their personal effects and gear, of course.
There are four carts surrounding the fountain, each one of various sizes and makes. The two largest are truck utility trailers made of heavy-duty steel. You've seen these on the road before, at least before the end of the world. They're the kind that hitch up to the back of some big pickup or van, and are usually loaded up with logs or furniture or whatever.
Their ramps have been lowered, allowing various townsfolk to stuff them with everything they can.
Perhaps the smallest of the carts is an older-style farm wagon. Not the wood kind that's bound with cast iron and all rickety. This one is basically like the truck trailers, but without any outer rails to keep things in. It's just a flat wooden bed on wheels with a thin layer of flattened straw on top of it.
It looks as though someone is welding some kind of rail at the rear - presumably to keep things from falling off when the thing starts moving.
The cart that's middling in size is an old one. It looks like an old-timey luggage cart that's usually shown off at train stations, as though they're some kind of historical artifact. You suppose that they are, in their own way. But now that you're seeing one in person, you're less than awed.
Its design is basically similar to the others, in that it's a flat bed on wheels. What makes this one different is that it has relatively tall wooden barriers on various sides in order to keep plenty of luggage inside. Kind of like those baggage carts that airports use when they load up the planes, except this one is probably a hundred years old now.
But instead of a sleek modern baggage carrier, what's in front of you looks like it has been made out of rusted steel and rotted wood all along.
You would never think to actually get on top of it, if it wasn't for the wheels and axles. It looks like someone has gone through great pains to clean up all the rust and debris around those moving parts, and even greased them up rather generously. The old metal wheels have been taken off, and more modern wheels have been attached. You guess these have been salvaged from whatever derelict tractors are around.
Plenty bits of flaked off metal, clumps of dried mud, and various other clusters of unidentifiable stuff litters the ground underneath it.
Each of the carts have been modified significantly - all of them previously had hitches designed for cars and trucks and tractors and such. But without gasoline or working car batteries those hitches are all but useless.
Instead, some of the townsfolk have shorn them off and welded on steel horse hitching. You count about eight of them laying around near the carts, which makes you suppose that the town has eight horses somewhere.
Beyond that, no matter their size, each of the carts have been packed tight with all of the residents' larger things. Their tools and implements, dried meats and grains, spare arms and munitions, so on and so forth. Each one also holds a medium-sized chest, each of which hold a variety of crop seeds from corn to Jerusalem artichokes to beets to filberts to tomatoes, and more. The sheer variety astounds you.
Perhaps most critically, all of the carts have dedicated water collection barrels on them. All are relatively standard molded plastic 50 gallon drums, but with special kinds of tops on them. Instead of a regular lid, it's a stretchy waterproof fabric with a filtered hole in the center. There are weights on the filter that pulls the hole down a few inches, making a wide but shallow funnel leading straight in.
This ingeniously allows the townsfolk to collect rainwater, even while they travel.
It's so pragmatic and clever and obvious that you find yourself a little envious. If only you have a more portable version of that rain collection system, one that works while you're traveling, then you'd be set. Having a renewable source of water would be a game changer for you. After all, you can't rely on finding bottled, purified water everywhere you go. At some point, that supply is gonna dry up.
Just as your own worries about the flow of water start to rise, a physical bottle of water is placed right in front of you, blocking half your view of the square. When you turn your head to see who's holding it, you see Frank with a wide grin on his face.
"I was calling out your name but I don't think you were quite here," he says. "Figured I'd get your attention this way instead."
He then places the bottle in your hands, then adds a second one to them.
"Said I owed you water," Frank continues. "And I've still got more if you need. Just say how much and it's yours."
"This is more than enough," you reply. "Thank you."
"You sure? I've got plenty. I'm sure you don't."
You stuff the two bottles into your messenger bag, causing it to become close to full. That causes the bag to become that much heavier, and you physically feel its weight dragging your shoulder down. It feels awkward and uncomfortable, and so you instead shuck your pack off and place all but one of your water bottles in it instead.
As you do so, you realize that perhaps water truly is the most valuable thing out here, besides those seeds. Everything needs it, and it's in shorter and shorter supply with every day that passes. It makes so much more sense that they're in your trading pack now.
Water is very likely the currency of the future, and everything else will be weighed against it.
You make a note to figure out how to carry more water, without getting too overburdened by it. Then you snap out of your own thoughts, seconds after you realize that you're still talking to Frank, and that he's still waiting for you to respond.
"Sorry, I got lost there for a sec," you say sheepishly, but Frank doesn't seem to mind. "Anyway, I can't carry too much water no matter what. Not just 'coz they're kinda heavy and awkward, but I don't have too much space to begin with."
Frank nods in understanding - your hiking pack is only a day pack. Might be a bit larger than other day packs, but still small in general.
"I might have a weekender bag somewhere," Frank says. "It'd be an upgrade to the one you got. Could carry twice as much, I'm guessing."
Though it'd be a good idea to take him up on his offer and put on a pack twice as large, you shake your head in refusal.
"I'd rather stay light," you tell him. "Mostly so I can hide or run or fight better and all that. But thanks for the offer. I, uh, appreciate it."
Frank nods in understanding again. He then turns his gaze at the road heading northward out of the square and through the town. Anticipation and anxiety waft off from him in heavy waves, making clear that he's both excited and afraid of the path ahead of him, of the whole town.
"You sure you can't come with us north?" he asks after a long minute.
"I've gotta keep going west," you reply. "I feel like it's been calling me for years now since this all started. And it's high time I listened to that."
"I get it, and I don't blame you. We all got that kinda calling sometimes. I know I did. It hit me deep, drove me towards something I couldn't quite grasp, not at the time. So if that's what you're feeling too, then I know there's nothing I can say or do to stop you."
As you thank him for understanding, you wonder how his own journey looked like. How he made it through it and ended up wherever he did.
"Did you go on a walkabout?" you ask. "That's what I'm doing now. Walking. Thinking. Hopefully changing for the better along the way."
"Walkabout, huh?" he replies. "Sounds leagues better than what I did. I joined the army. They said it was about self actualization, among other horseshit. I guess it kinda was in its own way, just not what I wanted or expected."
"Why'd you stay?"
"Ain't the kind to wash out. And also 'coz I was promised seeing the world, which was what I actually needed to do. I wanted to meet randoms everywhere, yokels like me out in the back woods of wherever. Make friends with them."
Frank's throat dries as he speaks, until his voice cracks and his psyche fills with a sorrow that's been softened by decades.
"Instead I ended up aiming down sights at 'em," he continues after a choked pause. "Anyway, I hope if that ever happens to you, that you know to keep your arm down and your head calm, instead of squeezing that trigger while blind red."
You turn to look down the road, at whatever Frank is looking at as well. You can't see what he sees, at least beyond the road itself. That turns off northwest at some point further, obscuring the rest of it behind the thick treeline flanking it.
Now you understand why he didn't point his weapon back at Carl, even if he wanted to.
The silence fills the space between you, though you break that silence before it becomes truly uncomfortable.
"Well no matter what, I'll still journey with you at least for a week or two," you say. "Gotta help you all acclimate to… this kinda travel. It isn't easy."
"We all certainly appreciate it," Frank replies. "Especially Nance. Says she can't wait for you to teach her some tricks or something."
"Yeah, I told her I'd teach her what I know while I can. That way, you'll have access to my powers, but with someone you can trust with your life."
"I think it's worth saying that we all trust you with our lives already."
"Ah, well, you know what I mean," you say awkwardly.
"You, uh, think she can handle what you can do?" Frank asks after a second. His doubt is clear in his voice.
Both of you turn your eyes to Nance, who's over with her team near one of the carts. All of them are working together to pack their extra guns and ammunition onto it, along with whatever nonessentials they still have.
You note that every single one of them in her team are much more kitted out than usual. Now they're all wearing ballistic vests, knee and elbow pads, and weapon slings. More than that, they've switched out their rifles for the ones that the 'gangers' were using, which are mass-produced carbine automatic rifles.
Perfect for skirmishes such as the one you've all defended from.
They're all also wearing large packs on their backs, much larger than yours. They contain all their clothes, meds, food, water, supplies, ammo, at least as far as you can tell. And it seems like they have enough to last them a week in there.
Even Nance is relatively kitted out, though with a pack about the size of yours. She's also sporting a large waist pack up front, which makes you think it's filled with coupons and cash and maybe a snack. But of course, it's filled with what seems to be her meds, a first aid kit, and a multitool, knife, and flashlight.
Nance herself isn't athletic, or at least she doesn't consider herself that. Unlike her rather fit team, she's a bit soft in the middle. Which makes sense given her age - you guess she's about five or six years younger than Frank.
You sense her mind and body struggle with everything around her, from all the aches and pains that her body is feeling, to the outright irritation from the pack's straps on her shoulders. Despite it all, you also sense her drive pushing all those gripes away.
"She'll be fine," you finally reply. "She's tougher than she looks."
"Well, you can clearly see more than I do," Frank says. "So I'm sure you're right."
"You don't sound convinced."
"Known Nance for two decades now. Always been clumsy, stubbing toes and dropping books. She was one of the town's teachers. Middleschoolers, I think. Now, nothing wrong with that, but what I'm saying is that she ain't the physical, outdoor type."
"Well, she was up front during all the fighting, right? That's gotta count for something."
Frank nods in agreement, after a few seconds of reflection.
"Like I said, you see more than me. And if you say Nance can do the same as you, then I'm happy."
"She oughta know better than all of us how to learn, so yeah."
A sense of peace washes over Frank, just enough to ease the rest of his tensions a little. His shoulders relax somewhat as a result.
While the two of you ponder the potential of your futures, one member of Frank's team runs up to him with his breath a little out of sorts. He's kitted out similarly to Nance's team, and looks well-prepared for the road ahead.
"Chief!" he says. "Everyone's just about rested and ready to head out. Only got a few last minute things to deal with, but we're on 'em."
Frank turns to reply, reinflating himself as he does so. His previously relaxed state is gone as quickly as it arrives.
"That's damned good news," he replies. "Let's get the horses hitched and those carts lined up now. That way we can hit the road an hour from now, just when the sun sets."
"We're traveling at night?" asks the townsperson.
"Only way you all won't get cooked by the sun," you reply.
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