I woke from a dreamless, restful sleep and felt the closest to normal I had in weeks.
I’d slept at home last night, figuring I needed the extra time and comfort. Usually, because of the nature of my role and the state of Vancouver HZ, I spent most of my nights passed out on a spare couch in headquarters. Most of the Outers and techs did the same; we never knew when an emergency might happen, and having all of the people and equipment available at your fingertips, even when you were asleep, had its merits.
I got up, dressed, and brushed my teeth in a blue-tiled bathroom that matched with the eclectic nature of the rest of my home, a small semi that was conveniently located a 30-second sprint from headquarters.
Or perhaps it’d be more appropriate to call it my dwelling. I called it “home,” but ultimately I didn’t own it.
When the population—of what I assumed was the world, but at the very least of Vancouver HZ—stabilized at less than one percent of pre-Reckoning levels, real estate became affordable again. And by “affordable,” I meant “free.” As far as I could tell from the information I gathered since moving in three months ago, the previous owner of the home really enjoyed cumin. I found one salt-shaker, one pepper-shaker, and six—six!—of those ClubHouse cumin spice bottles.
I unplugged my phone from where it was hooked up to a portable battery on the kitchen table. Vancouver HZ had an entire group of people whose job it was to maintain a grid of solar panels up north that had miraculously survived any damage from the Reckoning, and constantly juice up commercial portable batteries. A different group of nerds, techies, and a single legitimate electrical engineer had somehow cobbled together their own network upon which all of our phones operated. At some point, Jared had merged all such brainiacs into the Engineering Unit
I frowned at my rumbling stomach and raided the pantry to find a sea of green. Breakfast—meals in general—had become fairly easy after the Reckoning. A city that was stocked with enough non-perishable food to meet the needs of 600,000 people suddenly only had a population of 3,000 to contend with.
We had a lot of Nature Valley.
I headed out the door, opening my breakfast on the way. I'd found that the best way to avoid a mess of edible sawdust on the floor was to open the package outside.
The short walk to headquarters was a quiet one. With the exception of those who had been given a job by Dawn’s administration, most of the inhabitants of Vancouver HZ spent their time indoors, avoiding each other, or otherwise out scavenging the habitable parts of the city for supplies that Dawn’s logistics sweeps might have missed. The fear that anyone could seemingly Twist, with no way to tell who or when, led the people to distrust their friends, neighbours, and even family.
Headquarters was a squat, three-storey gray building that would have practically screamed “government” before the Reckoning. It housed the majority of Dawn’s administration, from Outer-rich teams to techs who managed the food supply. Hundreds of people in Vancouver HZ considered Headquarters a second—or often, primary—home.
The building was chosen as headquarters for the sole highly practical reason that it was directly in the centre of the monolithic 20-foot walls that defined the Habitation Zone, and was therefore the best place from which to respond to any spontaneous Twistings.
In some ways, it was a bad idea to concentrate so many of Vancouver HZ’s key operations in one place—a single spontaneous Twisting had the potential to utterly destroy such a human-rich complex. However, between the Twisted Response Unit and Dawn’s own executive team which were made up of the most powerful Outers the city had to offer, most folks felt pretty safe going into work.
I nodded to the two security guards who were positioned at the entrance to the building; their jobs were simply to ensure no unauthorized entry—though I don’t know why anyone would want to visit this hellhole. The guards wouldn’t have a chance against a typical Twisted. One of them managed a half-hearted “heya, Chris,” before turning vacant eyes back to quiet scenery. I strode deep into the bowels of a building that I had grown to both hate and accept ever since my Outer abilities had awakened.
When I reached the room that formed the core of the Twisted Response Unit, I was greeted with a rare scene of absolute indolence. Techs and Outers alike were lazing around in office chairs, surrounded by the typical heaps of paper that were used to document and hopefully find patterns in the spontaneous Twistings.
“You’ve been assigned a mission,” Ethan called out from behind a paperback book as I stepped into the room.
Gods, even Ethan was slacking.
“Details?” I said. I’ll admit I was interested; our missions could take anywhere from an afternoon to a week and typically ranged from dull to I’m-not-making-it-out-of-this-one-alive. Regardless of the specific mission, they were all for the betterment of Vancouver HZ.
And anything beat responding to spontaneous Twisting emergencies. Though it hadn’t happened yet, I never knew when I’d have to kill someone I’d come to know in this community.
“Dawn should be arriving soon with more details and a briefing,” Ethan replied. “All I’ve heard is that it’ll be outside Vancouver HZ.”
I let out a slow whistle. Any mission that took place outside of the Habitation Zone’s encircling 20-foot walls required Dawn to personally make temporary channels through the walls for exit and re-entry.
After all, she had single-handedly built them.
Dawn was an earth-manipulator of horrifying strength, though her power leaned more towards utility than offense. While I’d seen her bury entire legions of Twisted alive, neither was she strong enough to actually crush an individual Twisted nor were they strong enough to dig their way out of her confinement. It was a stalemate that ended decidedly worse for the monsters she buried alive, but a result still less effective than what the more combat-focused Outers could achieve.
No, Dawn got her position as leader of Vancouver HZ for the simple fact that it was her walls, and them alone, that kept the city’s small population safe from the literal hundreds of thousands of monsters pressed up in mindless aggression against its earthen ramparts.
“Do you know who’s coming?” I asked.
“Me, you, Ellen, and Dawn,” Ethan replied.
“Wait, Dawn’s on this mission? Outside the walls?”
Ethan shrugged. “It’s what I heard when I bumped into her earlier. Apparently it’s a priority for Vancouver HZ. Has to do with the food supply.”
That sobered me up quickly. I glanced at the now-empty Nature Valley wrapper wadded up in my hand. It had been six months since the Reckoning. Anything perishable had long since rotted away. We still had what the Food Management Unit considered to be about a year’s supply of shelf-stable foods, but we couldn’t live off of Nature Valley, spam, and tinned soup forever. Our plantations had thus far yielded a few meagre harvests. I remember each amounting to something like a quarter of a vegetable per resident. It was a start, but it wasn’t sustainable yet.
“Was there any fallout from yesterday?” I asked.
“Medium-low?” Ethan said uncertainly. “They won’t know how extensive the damage from yesterday’s Twistings and fight was until the crops have been given a few days to either thrive—or fail. But at the very least, the damage was localized to a small portion of the plantation.”
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“Well that’s a relief,” I breathed.
Our conversation was interrupted when Ellen strode into the room. Her eyes lit up when she saw us, and she made her way over.
“Chris! It’s been a few. How have you been?”
“It’s been rough week, but I’m sure it’s got nothing on yours. I know you’re our most valuable Outer, but do they lock you in the lab or something?”
Ellen blushed and began to stammer, “I would hardly describe myself—”
She was interrupted by a loud snort from Ethan. “You are, sis, even if you don’t admit it to yourself. Sure, maybe Dawn secured Vancouver HZ’s safety in the present, but you are its future.”
“I just don’t think we should trivialize anyone else’s contributions,” she said with a mock glare at Ethan. Clearly, she was far more comfortable rejecting compliments from her brother than she was from anyone else.
Ellen had inherited approximately half of whatever super-genes gave Ethan his Hollywood-like appearance. They shared sandy-gold locks, high cheekbones, and that textbook stoic resting expression, but the similarities ended there. Ethan’s strong superman-esque cleft chin was traded in for Ellen’s narrow subtle one. His limpid blue eyes were matched by deep pools of dark brown.
“He’s right though, sis,” Ethan said, a worried expression crossing his face. “You spend far too much time in the lab. The Food Management Unit have been constantly on my back about getting some of your time to help grow the crops. I know you want to solve the mystery behind Twisted, Outers, all of it, but can’t you slow down a little?”
“I will not slow down,” she whispered fiercely. “We may keep it from the general population, but you know as well as I do that any human who is not an Outer has the potential to become a Twisted.”
“Yes, but it’s still very unlikely. The incidence is well below—”
“I will not let you become a Twisted,” she all but snarled.
Ethan shook his head in reply. I also stayed quiet; I wasn’t about to get in the middle of this.
Ellen took a deep breath and seemed to regain her composure. “Besides, I do take breaks. I’m going on this mission, aren’t I?”
“Because it was a direct order,” an amused voice rang from outside.
The office went quiet. It’s not that the folks here hadn’t seen Dawn, but she didn’t frequently stop by the Twisted Response Unit and she was the Boss, in every sense of the word. She was 5 foot 10 inches, and built like someone who could make my uncle cry uncle. I heard she had been an amateur MMA fighter before the Reckoning, though it was all hearsay; Dawn didn’t like to talk about her past.
She was trailed by Stephen, another Outer from our Unit who I was on pretty good terms with. A balding man on the wrong side of his forties, Stephen looked like he’d rather be anywhere else than trailing in Dawn’s footsteps.
“Hey gang,” Dawn greeted us with a nod.
“Dawn,” I nodded back.
“It’s been a few weeks since we’ve talked, Chris. How have you been?”
“You’ve been running me ragged,” I replied with aplomb.
Beside me, Ethan raised a hand to his forehead in the unmistakable gesture of a rapidly developing headache, and Ellen gave a dry chuckle. One of the nearby techs buried in what were probably logistics reports choked. Point to me.
Dawn smiled sympathetically. “With great power, and all that. Believe me, I know.”
And at the end of the day, I knew I was preaching to the choir. The bags underneath her eyes practically looked like they were Twisting all on their own.
“But you can always ask for help,” she continued. “We’re a team, after all. Madison and her group should return in a few days from their Portland resupply run, but until then—”
”The executive team is to be used for escalation only, class B emergencies or above,” I said, pinching my nostrils shut to give my voice a nasal quality as I stared directly at Ethan. “That’s the policy.”
“Dude, it is so embarrassing to be your tech,” he muttered.
“Policy? I’m telling you to screw the—” Dawn paused. Sighed in understanding. “Oh. Jared will force his seminars on all of us, won’t he?” Behind her, Stephen shuddered, as if reliving a bad memory.
“He used to be a businessman, you know,” Dawn continued. “Before the Reckoning, I mean. Despite his almost-pompous by-the-book attitude, he’s a logistics genius. I may be the only thing keeping this community safe, but he’s the one keeping it running.”
“The twat still needs to learn that there’s more to life—even post-apocalyptic life—than policies,” I grumbled.
“Here, here,” Stephen echoed.
“I’ll let the twat know,” Dawn said, her eyes crinkling at the edges. She cleared her throat. “Right, to business. Between maps from before the Reckoning that we were able to retrieve and drone surveillance from our Engineering Unit, we believe there to be a large, workable field about seven kilometres north of the HZ walls.”
I almost dropped my Nature Valley wrapper. This had the potential to be huge.
“Workable? As in hasn’t been contaminated with Twisted blood?” I asked.
“That’s our hope,” Dawn said quietly. “None of the typical markers—the blackened soil, the barren landscape—are present. They even reported what looked like traces of grass. But we’ll need to test it. So I won’t just be opening and closing walls this time, I’ll be with you the whole way.”
This time I did drop my wrapper, though Ethan was quick enough to swipe it as it fell. Were we sure he wasn’t an Outer?
“This is perhaps the most critical mission we’ve ever run. It’s integral to Vancouver HZ’s future. If it’s successful, I’ll need to assess how far the fields are so I can come up with a better estimate of the time it would take to add them to Vancouver HZ’s enclosure.”
We left headquarters and piled into one of those large police vans. The grating that used to separate the front from the back had been removed. Ethan insisted that I drive, and Dawn rode shotgun.
Ethan read off of a clipboard that Dawn had handed him earlier. “The mission is timed for a half day. Stephen will stay at Vancouver HZ and cover our exit and re-entry. I will be providing logistics support. Dawn will manage crowd control and reshaping the walls, while Chris will engage any individual Twisted that appear. Ellen will assess the soil for fertility.”
I drove us to the north side of the city, taking as much care as I could to avoid the particularly nasty cracks that ravaged the ground. Within a few minutes, we approached the walls. Vancouver Habitation Zone looked radically different than the Vancouver of old—I’d imagine most places in the world did at this point—but the most drastic change were the soaring 20-foot walls that ringed the living area.
We had kept the details of the mission secret, but all the same a wave of people stood by the edge of the walls to watch as we left. I don’t know if it was leaked, or if our vehicle had just drawn a crowd.
With the exception of those who had a job in the new administration, people spent most of their days idle. Paperbacks were a huge commodity, and the local libraries and bookstores had long since been cleaned out. Despite the boredom, though, Jared was finding new jobs for folks all the time as we continued to rebuild. People had access to food—which was admittedly bland—and clean water. There were barely any casualties from spontaneous Twistings anymore. Despite that, I couldn’t help but feel that for all that it had, the Habitation Zone was missing a sense of community. Outside of the administration, the city was a collection of individuals, but not a collective. I sincerely hoped that would manifest with time.
We reached the edges of the walls. Stephen muttered a quick “good luck,” and stepped out of the car.
Dawn spoke up. “Chris, when I start to move the walls, I’m going to need you to drive straight, as fast as you can, out of the city. There is an indescribable number of Twisted outside, and if we pause for even a second we’ll get buried.”
“But will there even be a clear path?” I asked. “Won’t the Twisted crowd the other end of the tunnel?”
“Yes, which is why a tunnel would never work,” she replied with a smile. “I’ll be moving the walls away from the city, like opening a gate. Think Moses parting the sea, except I’ll be parting an ocean of Twisted. Some may get spat out of the Earth again, so we’ll need you to kill the ones ahead of us while Stephen kills the ones behind. Once we’re out, I’ll close the gates again.”
Ah. Now it became clear why I was in the driver’s seat. I needed line of sight to kill whatever horrors might pop their heads out of the earthen ramparts.
“How will you close the gates again? Won’t all of the Twisted take the opportunity to rush in?”
“There’s no better Outer than Stephen for this,” Ethan said. “He’s done this dozens of times for us. His power over gravity, applied over a large area, will keep the Twisted at bay while Dawn reforms the wall, while he can use localized gravity to completely crush any individual Twisted that makes it through into a paste. Jared’s also Watching from headquarters, and can move if need be.”
“Got it,” I said. I looked over. Ethan and Dawn were tense. I believe they were the only ones to have actually taken missions outside of the walls. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t nervous, but it was coupled with an equal helping of exhilaration. Even if it was for my safety, I couldn’t help but feel claustrophobic after months of living inside the walls.
“Are you ready?” Dawn asked.
She received terse nods from all of us in reply.
“Gun it,” she told me, and I slammed my foot down on the gas.
The walls rippled before me, solid earth twisting and rushing away like liquid. I tried to keep my jaw from dropping as I drove. The earth Dawn moved with a thought must have weighed tens—no, hundreds—of thousands of pounds. It was an unfathomable amount of mass. ‘Moses’ indeed. I gritted my teeth and trusted Dawn to do her thing as I kept my foot pressed against the floor, eyes vigilant for any Twisted that might rear up due to the wall’s unpredictable undulations.
For the first time since the Vancouver HZ had been established and Dawn had raised the walls, I would be leaving its relative safety and heading out into the chaos beyond.