Clara followed the innkeeper’s directions up a stone-scattered path which climbed the valley’s hillside towards the cartographer’s cottage. Young trees crept over the fields, errant shavings of the forest above. Clara pulled her combat jacket around her as the daylight dimmed in the shade of the trees. The path became steep and rocky as it climbed beside a gushing stream, then ahead, the path flattened at a shelf beneath a cascading waterfall. Two large water wheels turned on either side of the bank beneath the waterfall, attached to robust huts. A bridge crossed the river, and on the other side, afternoon sunlight beamed on a timber cottage sitting in a clearing of trees. A discordant radio tower jutted out of the cottage, fitted with several satellite dishes, rising above the canopy.

Clara crossed the bridge, appreciating the craftsmanship of the waterwheels. The waterfall rushed over them, pelting the wooden paddles like machine gun fire over a cacophony of radio static. The wheels creaked on their axis as they turned. Clara surmised that they had been built post-cataclysm. People in the old world had used more complex ways of creating power–energy plants and the national grid. Clara remembered the world like that from when she was a child; lights always on, devices like her wrist terminal were in everyone’s hands. It was hard to imagine now, with scavenged fuel drying up across the wasteland, settlements had to adapt and find new sources of energy if they wanted to run generators and use electricity.

By that projection, Milltown might only be a small trade hub now, but it could prosper in the coming years, given its water-powered infrastructure. It could be a good place for her and Andy to set up shop, assuming there was an employer nearby who could offer them the right sort of work at a good price.

A small gated fence encircled the cottage garden. Spilling over the fence’s boundary line was a pile of scrap metal and electronics: PC cases, monitors, aerials and components all rusted and warped by the sun. The garden itself was well kept and divided into flower beds, dotted with early blooming yellow daffodils. A sign beside the gate read: ‘Announce yourself. Wait at the gate.’

Clara had left her submachine gun in the possession of the Inn’s storehouse. She didn’t want to intimidate the cartographer. However, under the errand boy’s supervision, she had withdrawn her .45 sidearm and combat knife. They were obscured beneath her jacket, but by no means hidden. It would be careless to negotiate any sort of deal completely unarmed.

“Hello?” Clara called. “I’m looking for James the cartographer.”

After a moment, Clara heard the thud of movement from inside. An old face appeared in a small window beside the front door, seemingly built from transparent plastic, then the door opened a crack.

“Who is it?”

“My name’s Clara, I’m a mercenary. Looking to trade some information.”

The door opened wide. An old man stepped outside, shotgun in the crook of one arm. His muscular shoulder slouched beneath their own weight. He stooped and examined Clara with bright beady eyes. “Who sent you?”

“The barkeep at the Haven Inn recommended you.”

“I’m not trading today. Come back tomorrow.”

“Oh James, stop it.” A woman appeared behind the old cartographer and patted his back. “Come on now, out of the way.” A luxurious silken yellow dress fluttered about her as she flowed down the garden path. The silk fabric caught the sunlight, reflecting it like a gem, glistening in the smoothness of her dark skin. Her hair was short and frizzy, her arms long and slender. Clara was startled by her appearance, like a daffodil compared to Clara’s dark road-worn combat kit.

“Clara was it?”

“Yes.”

“My name’s Sonji. Come inside.” The woman opened the gate with a smile, leading Clara towards the cottage. The interior was cramped and cluttered. “Leave your shoes on, honey. Wouldn’t want you stepping on something sharp” The woman disappeared into an adjoining room. “Would you like some tea?”

“Yes please,” Clara said, looking around. Her eyes were drawn to a hundred things at once. Computers were stacked against the walls, their cases open to the components inside, gathering dust. Atop one pile, a healthy looking plant dropped its stringy vines over the electronics. A network of multicoloured wires ran along the ceiling, some dangled down in disarray. Clara followed the woman into a kitchen beyond. A tiny bird chirped and jumped about in a cage hung beside a spice rack. A stonework oven was built into the outer wall, sprouting a chimney, beside which pots and pans hung from hooks. A small log fire glowed in the oven, softening the shadows cast from an open window. Baskets and nets full of ingredients covered the walls, the majority of which Clara did not recognise, not even from their smell.

“What tea do you like?” the woman said, hanging a kettle in the oven fireplace.

“Anything,” Clara said.

“Why don’t you go and sit with my husband in the other room. I’ll bring the tea through in a minute.”

Clara followed her instructions into a room beyond. It was just as cluttered as the rest. James was sitting at a desk, piled high with circuit boards and computer components. He was using tweezers to straighten the minute pins on a processor. Small glasses held together with black electrical tape perched on his wide nose. He pointed at a chair opposite him. It was covered in clutter.

“Where shall I move this stuff?” Clara asked.

James grunted in response. Clara moved the clutter onto the floor and sat down. “I’ve got information to trade.”

“And I’ve got the best maps in the world.” He set the component down and rotated a wall-mounted monitor to face her. It displayed a map of the local landscape divided into apocalypse zones. Using a sphere on his desk, he scrolled around the map to show its extent. “What zone?”

Without having her wrist terminal for reference, Clara struggled to remember the specifics of their route. “It would be easier to show you on my terminal, but it’s out of juice. Do you have a charging port?”

“I have, it’s homemade.” He pointed to a rack-unit of machines, Clara wasn’t sure which one he meant. “Is Bulwark tech?”

“Yeah, it’s a terminal.”

“What model is it?”

“I don’t know. There’s some writing on the back-”

“Give it here.” James took the terminal off her and held its casing up to the light, muttering the digits embossed out loud. “An early model. Is it updated?”

“With what?”

“With what.” He tutted, unravelling a ribbon cable from the rack unit.

“Hold on,” Clara said, standing up. “If you’re just going to download everything on there, then what am I supposed to bargain with?”

“Settle down, I can’t download anything with this. I’m only going to check the firmware.”

“No, you’re not.” Clara held her hand out.

James relinquished the ribbon cable reluctantly, like a child returning a treat, exchanging it for a simple charging pin which he shoved into the port. “Happy?” Her terminal beeped as it rebooted, and he returned the device to her. “It’s been a while since I’ve had Bulwark tech to tinker with.”

“Scroll down,” Clara said, pointing at his computer monitor. “Further west.”

Clara’s heart sank as she discovered the breadth of zoning data which the cartographer possessed. His records were extensive, but there were some grey spots on his map where the data was scarce. Clara and Andy had spent eight years travelling from their homeland in the north, across the sea and down through the entire continent towards the southern coast near Quadra, gathering data as they travelled. But her records weren’t very valuable unless they were substantiated by another cartographer or a similarly reputable source. A mercenary's hearsay was cheap and easy to come by, and cartographers weren’t interested in trading rumours.

Luckily, some of her data came from the Visionaries’ database which she had purchased in Quadra. The Visionaries were known throughout the wasteland for keeping accurate records of the apocalypse zones. Clara tapped onto the ‘Maps’ tab on her wrist terminal, scrolling over to the farthest zone which she had data on–the western coast of the continent–comparing her data to James’, hoping to fill in some of the cartographer’s blanks.

“We started down here,” Clara pointed. “Further south. Keep going.”

The cartographer scrolled to keep up with her finger. “Ah, Quadra. Traded with a few from there. Not much I don’t know about the area.”

“Yeah, how much do you have west of it?”

James scrolled, and his maps’ annotations dwindled. “A fair bit.”

“I’ll come back to that then,” Clara said. “Go right. We started there and headed east,” Clara demonstrated their route on his screen.

“Passed through some heavy zones.” The cartographer turned his monitor back around, hiding it from her view, examining the route she’d mapped out.

Sonji returned with tea, making room for two mugs on the cluttered table. “I’ll be upstairs reading if anyone needs me.”

“Thank you,” James said, turning the monitor back to Clara. “This here. What have you got?” He pointed to roughly where the cultist settlement Hallow Hill was.

“Cultists.”

“That much I know. I also know there’s more to it than that. A group of mercs learned that I had this blank spot on my map last summer. They went out there to take a look. No one has seen them since.” He took a sip from his tea. “Hard to believe you passed through it willy-nilly.”

“We had some trouble, me and my partner.” Clara sipped the tea. It was minty and sweet, and tingled her nostrils. “Let’s talk terms.”

“Go ahead.”

“Zone for zone.”

James sucked through his teeth. “If you’ve got a zone that I don’t have, then sure. Otherwise, I'll have to evaluate your information on the fly.”

This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

“I just need a basic understanding of this area,” Clara said. “We’re new in town.”

“Then you need to provide me with about four new zones.” James peered above the rim of his glasses. “Or equal trade.”

Clara grimaced, but held his eye contact. James’ gaze was unwavering.

“Okay,” she said, lowering her gaze to her tea. “First of all, is there an AMC in town?”

“Why?”

“Because I wish to calibrate.”

The old man raised an eyebrow. “You’re Augmented.”

“Me and my partner.”

“Huh. There is one in town on the east side. Part of the New Patricians’ convoy.” James’ face was stern, wrinkled like the bark of an old oak tree.

“Who are they?”

“A military group, come from up north. Long way away. If you want more information than that, you can count it towards the trade.”

“Alright,” Clara said, “No funny business.” She went on to describe her zoning knowledge in detail. While talking about the zombies in Marsay, she described their characteristics and behaviours. There were many zones of zombie apocalypse in the wasteland, each was different. Most of her information matched the cartographer’s records, but some was new, such as that the zombies had been dry and desiccated–easy to burn; that was the sort of thing mercenaries liked to know. She described the scene which she and Andy had witnessed in the basement of the research facility–zombies slumbering in large piles, inactive until startled by the noise of the generators. There was value in the specifics.

James recorded everything she said on a microphone, taking notes as she went. “You got up close and personal, it sounds.”

“Yeah, we’re pretty hands on. By the way, we’re open for business.”

“I don’t need no merc work,” James said. “Tell me more about this cultist zone in the mountains.”

Clara took it one step at a time, reciting the names of locations where they had encountered cultists, describing how they had used vehicles to patrol the roads. How to recognise them–by their clothing and their music, their culture and their mannerisms.

“They worship a demon,” Clara said. Then a thought occurred to her. The cultists had seemed to base their whole society around worshipping that demon. Now that it was dead, what would become of their society?

“Go on?” James said.

“Worshipped, I should say. Past tense.”

“What do you mean?” His attention was fixed on her now.

Clara sipped her tea nonchalantly. “It’s dead now.”

“What was it?”

“A vampire. It held dominion over Hallow Hill. It spread its influence over the wasteland, using cultist settlements as its militia, demanding offerings, gifts, and people’s lives, I assume.” Clara retrieved a crumpled map from her pocket. “I scavenged this from one of their vehicles. It has a few places marked down on it.”

James took the map and started copying down notes from it while Clara described the vampire in detail: its appearance, the way it talked and moved; the forms it took and the abilities it possessed. She talked at length, and finally, described how she’d killed it.

“Stuck one of the bulbs down it’s throat.” Clara rose out of the chair, posing to demonstrate. “And sawed through its neck with the other. The UV light burned its flesh, cut right through it. Then its body burst into flames.”

Clara sat back down in her chair grinning, relishing the memory of their victory. James leaned back in his chair regarding her.

“You’re not lying, are you?”

“You don’t believe me?”

James stared at her like an old painting, his expression unmoving.

“Rip up those notes,” Clara said. “Delete that recording. Believe I’m a liar, and we’ll go our separate ways.”

James took a deep breath and leaned forwards. “Alright missy, you win. You’re a hard-ass. I get it.”

“Now it’s your turn,” she said.

“If you’d like, I can transfer data directly onto your terminal, and take a look at the firmware while I’m at it.”

Clara narrowed her eyes. “Why are you so keen on looking at my firmware?” Clara didn’t want to admit she didn’t know the meaning of the word. Something technical, she assumed.

“The architecture is… so pretty.” James gazed at her terminal on the desk. “It’s a hobby of mine to tinker. A vice, I must admit.”

“You won’t break it?”

“Break?” he scoffed. “I’ll improve it.”

Clara considered the old cartographer for a moment. He was well composed, with assertive eyes, not the kind which dodged confrontation to obscure a lie. He seemed genuine, as far as first impressions went.

“Okay,” she said. “Go ahead. I want to know about everything within three-hundred miles. Every apocalypse zone that’s still active and dangerous.”

“One-hundred miles,” James said. “If you’re unsatisfied with my tinkering on your terminal, then I’ll make it three-hundred.”

“At least two,” Clara said. “Three, if I’m unsatisfied.”

“As long as you promise to be honest with me.” James plugged her terminal in and twiddled with the dials on his rack unit. Clara watched as her terminal’s screen went white, then the Bulwark Project logo appeared in the centre: An octagon with a DNA strand horizontally through the centre, separating a black base from a white top. The logo disappeared, replaced by a blue screen and bold, white text. James flicked through the text, muttering to himself, lost in a whole other world.

Clara shifted in her chair, gazing around the room at the clutter. Some muscle deep inside her shoulder twitched then her whole arm spasmed. Clara tried to hide the outburst by pretending she was stretching her arm, but James didn’t even look up from her terminal. Her fingers spasmed, clicking on invisible keys. It wasn’t painful as much as it was alarming. Clara rubbed her watch to steady her nerves, checking it for the time, but of course, the dials hadn’t moved in years. Finishing her tea, she cleared her throat. “How long will it take?”

“Huh? What?”

“How long will you be?”

“I could be hours.”

“I don’t have hours.”

James set the terminal down, turning on her with the full weight of his attention. “Tell me, Clara, what do you think of people?”

Clara paused. “That’s a bit broad.”

“Okay. Milltown folk, traders, farmers. What do you think of us?”

“Nothing. I don’t know.”

“The commoner. Salt of the earth. Man. Woman. The good in people. Do you see it? Do you believe it?”

Clara scowled. “Do I believe that all people are good? No.”

“What is mankind worth while we live in the shadow of a dying age? How shall we rebuild, except towards the same old ruin?”

“I don’t know.”

“Don’t you?” James leaned closer, peering over his glasses.

“You’re asking the wrong person, I’m just a merc.”

“Oh, my mistake.” He smiled and sat back, rubbing the knuckles of his wrinkled hand. They were swollen and calloused between the joints–the hands of a man who had done a lot of punching in his time. “You’re Augmented, aren’t you?” he said. “An upgrade on life.”

“I’m only recently Augmented, actually. I haven’t noticed much of a difference so far.”

“You don’t think you’re better than me?”

“At what?”

James snorted. “There are some who say the Augmentus are above everyone else. The next rung up in the DNA ladder. The New Patricians, they call themselves. You haven’t encountered any in the west?”

“How would I know?”

“Well, they’re arseholes. Well-armed, driving around in convoys of armoured trucks.”

“Does their logo look like this?” Clara held three of her fingers out.

“That’s the one. The three needles. Strength, wisdom and some other bullshit.”

“We travelled with a truck which bore that symbol, mercenaries by the name Alister’s Boys.”

James growled, clenching his fists. “That’s him. Not mercenaries. Patricians. They’re all hopped on amphetamines and snake-oil serum. Fascists, if you ask me.”

“Fascists?”

“Something of the old world. An apocalypse, if you will.”

Clara quickly reorganised her thoughts; if James was right about Alister’s Boys being a part of this New Patrician’s group, then had they lied to Old Blue Eyes when they were hired for the mission? Was there an ulterior motive to their sudden departure at the facility? Perhaps they’d intended to steal the payload, perhaps they knew what was inside it.

“Do they run things here?” she asked.

“Hardly,” James growled. “Leeches. They tax all of the trade in Milltown, demand free service at the mills. They claim to offer us protection in return, but from what? All the years I’ve lived here, we haven’t had any trouble from the wasteland. This valley’s secluded, and what apocalypses cropped up during the cataclysm, someone managed to deal with.”

“Oh yeah, how?”

James took a deep breath, gazing at the ceiling as though he was weighing something up.

“I’m not paying you for storytime, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

The old cartographer’s slouched. “Alright, fine. But only because I like telling it. The tale of the town goes that, during the cataclysm, evil spirits rose from rivers, kidnapping children, possessing their souls. Pregnant woman miscarried. Elder folk wandered down to the riverbank and threw themselves in at the dead of night. A priest took up his neighbour’s shotgun, dipped the shells in holy water and raised a militia against the evil spirits. He summoned them out of the waters, evoking the name of God, blasting them back to hell. Afterwards, he wrote up a plan for the future. A whole book, he wrote. Said it was a vision from God of how the world would change after the rapture, and how humanity would have to adapt.”

James rose from his swivel chair, stepping carefully through the clutter, leaning over a pile of machinery to get at a control panel near the ceiling. Hidden atop it in a dusty corner was a tomb. “I have one of the only surviving copies. Milltown followed this scripture for years, developing the industry along the riverside. It’s what attracted my wife and I to settle here. Our community was strong until the New Patricians arrived. People went missing. People with voices.”

“They took over?”

“Didn’t take long.” James’ voice was solemn. “A couple weeks, and this place was changed.” The chair creaked as James sat back down. “Must you deal with them?”

“If they’re the only ones with an AMC, my hands are tied.”

“That’s a shame. They’re real scumbags. Threatened me. Threatened my wife. They wanted my passwords, my patronage. I told them where to stick it. I’m the only free man left in Milltown cause I’ve got something they need.” James thumbed his computer screen.

“Don’t worry,” Clara smiled. “I won’t snitch.”

“Go ahead, they know I hate them already. The only reason I go on is because you’re an outsider, you should know the whole truth before they get to you. They’ve got a whole dogma, a whole sales pitch. Don’t buy it, not a word. Do your dirty business then go back to Quadra, that’s my advice, and tell the folk there to watch out for the New Patricians. Don’t trust them. Don’t let them behind your walls.” His voice quivered. “Kill them on sight.”

“Unfortunately, we won’t be returning to Quadra,” Clara rose. “But I'll carry your warning with me wherever we end up.”

“Okay. “James sighed, then pointed at her terminal. “Do you mind coming back for this tomorrow?”

“Why?”

“Charging the battery is going to take about eighteen hours.”

“Eighteen?”

“A slow charge is better for the battery’s lifespan.”

“And ]while it’s charging, you’re going to be tinkering with it?”

James shrugged. “May as well.”

“May as well,” Clara smirked, shaking her head. “There best be three-hundred miles of zone data on there when I get back.”

“Fine, fine.”

Following the path downhill, Clara breathed in the fresh air of late afternoon. Where the forest broke onto hillside fields, she took a moment to appreciate the setting sky. Ahead, to the east, the first of the night’s stars twinkled above the valley’s peak. The moon shone, pale and silent, a fingerprint smudge in the sky, emitting an aura of immensity which seemed to loom brighter the longer she stared. Smoke drifted across the sky from chimney stacks in Milltown. Dogs barked to one another across the town, and somewhere distant, a rifle shot rang out through the valley.

Clara gazed upstream towards the Haven Inn, the promise of a warm bath tugged her forward, half-falling down the rocky steps as momentum tugged her forward, picking up pace. Then, as the trees broke, she slammed on the breaks, almost slipping on the wet cobblestones. What she saw outside the inn sent a shiver through her body.

Parked opposite the bridge leading to the Inn was a lorry decorated in graffiti and a monstrous mural. The top was crowned with barbed wire, the wheels were protected by metal plates. The Trojan: the prized battlewagon of Alister’s Boys.

Andy was alone inside the inn with them. Another gunshot thudded, rather than echoed through the valley, deadened by the indoor acoustics. It had come from Haven Inn.