บท 39: The New city

Back on the Blue star, about one kilometer away from their family's scrappy house. A team which was being led by Beord to put up a quick shelter for the many animals which were clearly unplanned for. Scarlet had asked them to create a space foe three times as many animals just in case they found more of them later.

Scarlet too was outside, walking with her father, two mappers and another team of builders.

The further they walked, the more exhausted she felt. Scarlet made up her mind to use one of the bicycles in her storage space or the motorcycles.

Aside from the Blue forest, the bitter water lake and a very large ocean which her father told her could be seen from the higher lands, there was nothing much else to see on this desolate planet.

This was like taking a sight seeing tour in the desert under the hot blistering sun with no end in sight. Every once in a while the wind would blow by and some dust would rise and stick to her jeans and hands. It made Scarlet wish that rain would fall right at this moment.

There was no lack of bones, human and animal in this desolate land. It was quite a wonder to see that there were no vultures here. In the early months of the zombie apocalypse on earth the vultures were everywhere, feasting on bodies and guts until they died out slowly at a time as a resulting of eating poisonous flesh. Humans too turned around to prey on vultures when they run of food. Those were desperate days.

Then again, Scarlet thought to herself, vultures followed flesh not dry bones.

Occasionally, she came across random wandering souls which were easily sucked into the soul gourd with no struggle. Eventually, the exhaustion got to her and she felt as though she could not progress any further. This body really needed some fine tuning.

"Dad, how much further do we have to go?"

"Are you exhausted?" he looked at her worriedly.

"Yes." she admitted.

"Should we get into a mecha?"

"No." she said very loudly.

Walking was better than taking than horrendous mecha.

Dorian suddenly stopped walking and he looked at her. Then bent down, exposing his back to her.

"Hop on, I will carry you for the rest of journey."

Scarlet was shocked and slightly embarrassed. "I am a grown woman dad, how can you carry me at my age?"

Dorian answered, "You are my twenty eight year old daughter. In my eyes, you will forever be the little five year old girl that I carried around on my back when we went to watch the mecha fighters challenge. Now hop on or I will carry you forcefully."

One of the mappers snickered and Scarlet felt even more embarrassed. She was the governor of the planet, this was embarrassing. She needed to save her dignity.

"We are just ten minutes away from the site, I can hang on. You can carry me back." she lied to him.

With so much determination in her eyes, she refused to climb onto his back.

"Fine," Dorian said, "Take some water first."

He too would not be moved and he insisted on watching her take half a bottle of water before they continued moving when he was satisfied.

Ten minutes later, they arrived at the site of what would be the new city. It was going to be the first developed city with offices, houses, good roads and other facilities.

Every time she closed her eyes., she could picture it.

She was standing on higher ground in an area that was backed by two high mountains with a dry valley between. The mountains were bare, there was nothing beautiful about them. Perhaps a little snow would have given the mountains a beautiful look but right now they were just tall, plain and ugly.

"The mountains will provide security for us. We can set up bases and secret passages in there. There is no name for the mountains so we call them twin peaks. The first one is sharper at the top like an arrow so we call it Ice peak and the second one is flat topped so we call it flat peak."

"The second one is ideal for rock climbing activities." Scarlet said.

She had never personally engaged in the activity but she watched a few live broadcasts of outdoor anchors who climbed mountains, hunted in the woods and frolicked in water bodies for money.

She always found them to be incredibly courageous but she was too much of a coward to attempt those activities. It was not until the zombie apocalypse that she learned how to fight, block chi points and hunt. There was no room for cowardice in the apocalypse it was eat or be eaten.

"Look at the view from over here," her father called from higher ground. "You can see actually see another water body. The only time I was here I did not appreciate the view but now that we are building the city here, I see it in an entirely different aspect."

"I see it too." she replied. It was not large enough to be a lake, it looked more like a river to her.

They could build around it like one of those cities in Rome with water canals. How many times had she planned to take a trip to that city but she never made it. Those old cities were hauntingly beautiful. Now that she had a chance, she would recreate every city from earth that she ever found beautiful.

"What do you think?" her father asked her.

It felt good to see her father deferring to her for opinions. He did not just take charge of everything because he was older than her or her parent. He actually respected her position as governor of the Blue star.

The mappers placed the large maps which they had been carrying on their backs on the ground.

Dorian started pointing to different areas for Scarlet, "We will start by building skyscrapers here, here, and here. The governor's mansion which will be your abode will go here in the middle."

"No," she disagreed. "I think we should build the house of ministers here in the middle. I want to live in a castle. I like this place, from here I can look down on the entire city."

"But governors and royalty live in the middle of the capital city, that's how it's done." her father explained.

Scarlet still persisted, "We are not royalty father."