Miranda never liked the desert of the Americon west. She never liked it when she was living on a dusty homestead that had failed to catch up to modern times. She never liked it when she moved into the city that had nothing but flat, dusty shrublands surrounding it. And she certainly did not like the west when the apocalypse broke out while she was on a camping trip with her girlfriend.
“Are you sure we’re going the right way?” Alexa asked, kicking a stone out of her way.
Miranda shrugged. “Maybe? We’re heading northeast and the compass is pointing that way,” she explained while pointing to the flat, shrub-filled desert ahead of them, “and the sun is setting in that direction,” she said, pointing at the setting sun, “That means we need to walk in that direction,” she said, pointing at another part of the desert.
“Sure, but why don’t we head back to Salt Lake City?” Alexa pressed.
Miranda gave a short sigh, dusting her coat off and turning to her girlfriend. Alexa wore a blue tank top and grey jeans, which was her normal attire. On her back was slung her black camping bag, filled with every necessity and comfort she could carry -which was not much- and with various keychains dangling from the zippers. Her eyes were a piercing red, so piercing that Miranda almost flinched from seeing them. Her hair was green, naturally so after the ‘Awakening,’ as the chatter on their portable radio called it. The green was not a bright neon green but was a dark, almost mossy green. “Neither of us had friends in Salt Lake, right?” Alexa shook her head, “Then that means we have no reason to go back there. We did take most of our stuff from our little apartment after all. Besides that, you heard the radio, it’s a fucking warzone over there,” she explained.
Alexa narrowed her piercing red eyes, making Miranda flinch, “Language Mira…”
“Sorry… but my point still stands!” she retorted. She turned and looked at the shrub-covered ground ahead of her. Before the Awakening, the desert she hated so much was filled with shrubbery, but it had become even worse after the end of the world. At best, she could see one, maybe two patches of sand and dust on the ground. The rest was turned into a forest of bushes and shrubs. She thought for a moment before settling on an idea. “Alex, I have an idea. It will take a while though, so you can make yourself a stump and listen to the radio. Okay?” she asked.
Alex gave Mira a look of slight curiosity. “Do you want my help? You know I last longer than you,” she offered, then paused for a moment, “Not like that. Get your mind out of the gutter.”
Mira laughed. “No, I want to do it myself. You can park your butt on the ground or grow a stump and watch me make something cool,” she said. She put her bag down, green and filled with some important items and not much more, and closed her eyes.
Alex shrugged and held up her hand. From it, a small formation that looked like a top down view of a cake with a slice missing appeared. It pulsed blue for a moment and the ground in front of her changed. All of the shrubs around her died and withered, their dust falling to the ground. From the ground a small sprout began to grow. It grew slowly at first, but rapidly shot outward. Soon, a large tree stump lay in the ground, roots twisting around the edges of the lifeless circle. Alex sat in the middle and flashed another formation, causing a rectangle to spring from the center of the tree, acting as a backrest. “Alriiight… I’ll leave it to you. You want music or news?”
While keeping her eyes closed, she snorted. “Is there any music even out there?”
“Probably not!” Alex replied cheerfully, “But I may as well give you the choice. Anyway, I’m putting up K-EEZ. Let’s see what Frank Elentsten has to say.” Alex took the radio out of her massive bag and set it next to her, turning it on and tuning through the channels quickly. Eventually, she found the one she wanted and the voice of a young man came out of it.
“Good morning, folks. I’m your host, Frankie and with my co host, Hankie.”
“Don’t call me Hankie.”
“Anyway, we have a few new bits of news here. First of all, hard-working men and women have discovered a new property of the energy that permeates the world: apparently, any material will be strengthened if flooded with this energy. It’s amazing! I got a story here about a small group of hunters using energy-infused arrows to rip through kevlar! The marauders didn’t know what hit ‘em! What do you think, Hankie?”
“Don’t call me Hankie. But what do I think about it? I think it’ll start an arms race of sorts. There has to be a practical limit to the strengthening done to an object. We cannot just stuff a cotton ball with enough energy to stop a bullet. Believe me, I tried. Hana had to patch me up after that decision. Despite that, what I think will happen is that, once countries either take back their lands from marauders or beasts or fungus zombies or whatever, I think that there will be a lot of jobs focused on the singular goal of reinforcing armor, weapons, and buildings. In fact, this discovery could shake every industry there is. Construction companies could make skyscrapers the size of mountains and the width of needles. Weapons manufacturers can make a shield that can stop a bullet and can weigh like a sheet of paper. Even toymakers can make their toys chew-resistant. But what I find most interesting is the possibility that some oaf with more energy than brain cells will try to reinforce their arm more than just in the moment. I tried that too. It worked. Now I have an arm that will break the other if I hit it hard enough.”
Mira shook the radio hosts’ voices from her senses and focused on the task in front of her. She wanted to create a boat. But on land. With wheels. As she thought it out, it began to sound like a less and less intelligent idea, but she was committed. Her first order of business would be to get the materials to make the boat. To do that, she decided to do something similar to Alex and wanted to make a tree grow. The formation she created was one that looked like a thick arrow pointed at the ground. Firing the formation off, she felt the energy seep into the soil and take root in a shrub. Similarly to what happened with Alex’s stump, the shrubs around her spell withered and died, becoming dust on the ground. From the epicenter of the barren zone a thick tree slowly climbed into the sky. It climbed up and up, eventually becoming many dozen feet tall.
After the tree was grown, Mira fell backward, exhausted. Before she hit the ground, however, Alex appeared behind her and cradled her. “Jeez… you always want to do stuff yourself. Come on, let’s sit down, yeah?” she said, pulling Mira to the stump. Setting her down, Alex rummaged through her bag and pulled out a canteen of water and a bag of chips. Sitting down, Alex turned up the radio as she fed her girlfriend.
“Okay, okay! I get it, don’t call you Hankie… didn’t need to throw a fireball at me for that. Woah! Hey! Rude, Hana!”
“For god’s sake, Frank, stop antagonizing Hank. Keep it up, and the next rock won’t miss.”
“Alright, alright, I get it. I won’t call Hanki- uh… Hank any other name than his own.”
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“Good, ya damn coward.”
“Ahem… Sorry for the interruption folks, we were just having some… technical difficulties. Anyway, We have another story here. Apparently, there’s some sort of staging ground in Youdsville made by the military. They’re going to be taking Hollostan back from that fungal horde that took it over in the first few days of the Awakening. That’s certainly interesting, isn’t it Hanki- I mean Hank?”
“...”
“Why’re you giving me that look?”
“...I believe that it would be a good idea to get to that staging ground. Maybe not us, but the listeners. Last I heard, they have a refugee camp there and are starting to connect to the world at large. Apparently, the satellites went down during the Awakening or something like that.”
“Wait, why haven’t I heard about this!?”
“Believe it or not, Frank, I do actually talk to people other than you.”
“You… you do? My god… when did this happen!? Hank… what has the Awakening done to you man!? What happened to the silent, broody, edgy-”
“Wait, edgy?”
“Stoic-”
“Okay, I may be stoic, but-”
“Antisocial-”
“Wait, what the hell do you-!?”
“Loner friend I made in college!?”
“... Frank.”
“Mm?”
“What the hell?”
“What do you expect? You never wanted to be the one researching any of the news! You just wanted to be the informed opinion or whatever!”
“Actually, Frank, Hank has been putting a good third of the material we cover into the folder since day one.”
“Wait, why didn’t I know about this!? Hank, Hana!?”
““Because you have the memory of a goldfish.””
“... How did both of you sync that up so well?”
“Because it’s just the truth.”
“Because it’s just that obvious.”
“Oh…”
“Anyway, as Hank was saying, there’s a refugee camp over in Youdsville. They’re tight on rations, but anyone able and willing to fight will be given larger portions. However, if you do go there, be aware that there will be frequent attacks by beasts. It’s just one of those hot zones.”
“‘Just one of those hot zones’ my ass.We’ve been running into those beast bastards for days!” Alex yelled. With that, Mira decided to get up, stretch, and continue her project.
The next steps were much easier, as all she had to do was use a bit of energy to cut up the wood into the correct pieces. It tired her out, but was remedied by a quick breather. The next part would be the hard one, as she needed to slot each and every piece of the contraption into place and keep it there. She did not have as good of control of her energy formations as Alex did, so she needed to concentrate if she were to do as well as Alex. Starting with the wheels, she connected them to two turning rudders that would sit at front of the boat and two stationary protrusions that would sit at the back.
After that was attaching each part to the hull, which was easily done by creating very precise slots for each piece to fit. Although it would work for a while, she would likely need to drive more solid anchoring through each of the connecting pieces. Beyond the wheels and the hull, all she needed to do was put up the mast, test and correct the turning system, and she would be finished.
The mast was no problem, as she created it to slot in neatly with the rest of the design, but the turning system took a bit of trial and error. The turning gears she wanted to use were too fragile, but she did not have any stronger material. She thought about it long and hard before the answer finally came to her.
‘Didn’t they say something about using energy to strengthen materials? It even worked on cotton balls, so it should work with wood, right?’
In the end, the strengthening of the swivel piece went off without a hitch and she was able to complete the design.”And here it is!” she presented, swinging her arms in a wide arc and turning to Alex. “Oops… wait one second.” she muttered as she went off to find one of the branches of the tree she was unable to stop from growing. She plucked a leaf from it and created another formation, causing the leaf to grow to massive size. She nailed the leaf to the mast. “Now I’m done!” she celebrated. The boat in front of her was similar to a medium sized fishing boat made of wood. It was about 15 feet long and 4 feet wide with a narrow front and no lower deck. The front two wheels were connected by a series of beams that allowed the person steering to use an old fashioned boat wheel.
“I don’t mean to be rude, honey, but why did you make a boat?” Alex asked, putting her head on Mira’s shoulder.
“Okay, you’re going to have to hear me out here, okay?” Alex nodded, “We can use energy to create wind and propel this thing forward, which means that we can go faster than we would have if we just walked! Look, I can steer and you can use energy to move it with wind! And we can even switch out! Come on, let’s test drive it!”
“Wait, Mira, I can already tell this will be too heavy.” Alex interrupted, “Not even I can do this.”
“R-Really? Are you sure? If we could…” Mira stamered.
“However, I do have an idea. I think you already used it to fix the turning gears. Here’s how it will work: we shave off some of the interior, but then reinforce everything with energy. I’ll do the reinforcement myself, if that helps. Alright?”
“But… But.”
“Hey, no buts. I know you wanted to do something for me on your own, but it’ll only be great if we put our strengths together. I would have never figured out how half of this could work, and you could never have all of the energy needed to make this happen. Now, let’s do this,” Alex said, placing a kiss on Mira’s lips.
They savoured the moment and then got to work. All in all, the process was quicker than both of them expected. Mira was only confident in shaving off smaller areas of the floor at a time, so she was always waiting for Alex. In spite of that, it did not take long for Alex to reinforce her sections and they were able to get a much thinner, lighter, but also sturdier ship. “So! Without further ado, let’s go!” she cheered, swiftly followed by Alex, who threw their bags aboard the boat and spun a formation into existence that would blast the leaf-sail with continuous wind. The boat sped forward, going faster than either of them could have hoped for. After a while of steering and ‘sailing’ Mira spoke up, “I think we should head to Youdsville.”
“Why’s that?” Alex asked.
“Because it’ll be a lot safer than staying out on our own. That and we’ll have interesting company, I bet,” Mira responded.
“Hmm…” she purred, “Well, captain, I think it’s your decision where this ship goes, but we have one more thing to do.”
“And what might that be, loyal crewmate?” she laughed.
“This fine vessel needs a name.” Alex replied with a grin.
That question threw Mira off guard a bit, but she already had a response from one of her favourite stories, “Hmm… I believe that this vessel is fit for the name Argo.” Her bold declaration got a laugh out of Alex. “What’s so funny? You know I like the Argonauts, even if some of the characters are asses.”
Alex kept laughing as she continued to power the wind formation. “It’s nothing. Just, never change, Mira,” she laughed.
“Trust me,” she replied, “I never will.”