ALBA

by HL TRUSLOVE

  “Aye, well, that’s not their fault, is it Friis?” asks the smaller man, with thinly veiled impatience. Friis merely sniffs in reply, and his companion opens his mouth to say something but is interrupted by a shout high on the bank.

  “If you don’t mind!” Viktor calls, gesturing sarcastically in the direction of the boat. Gaia rolls her eyes as she turns back to the welcoming party.

  “Do you have hands to spare?”

  “Of course!” says the smaller man. “We’ll send them over immediately.”

  Time seems to go by quickly from then, and within an hour the ship is unloaded. The supplies lay in a pile at the centre of the camp while Viktor and the tall man take stock. A few excited settlers mill around the area, eager of an eyeful of the bounty sent from home. You sit with Gaia on the edge of a crate, the two of you taking in the sights, allowing yourselves a moment to appreciate the old world. The short man comes over and joins you, oblivious to your moment of quiet.

  “Didn’t get a chance to properly introduce myself earlier,” he says, the smile not having left his face yet, “I’m Jan.”

  “It’s nice to meet you Jan,” you say, because after nearly a month stuck with the same two people, it’s nice to meet anyone.

  “So, I read that you aren’t scheduled to return with these two,” Jan remarks, gesturing to your colleagues. “We didn’t request another body in the last comms relay. So… why are you staying here?”

  “Not many are qualified to install these.” Turn to 1.5.

  * * *

  “I was desperate to live in the old world.” Turn to 1.6.

  * * *

  “I suppose to get me out of the way, there were complaints.” Turn to 1.7.

  * * *

  “I requested myself. It was the only way to further my studies.” Turn to 1.8.

  1.5

  You kick your heel against the box you’re sitting on, indicating to the stencilled words across the side. Jan tilts his head and reads them aloud.

  “Solar,” he says with a smile. He shakes his head and chuckles, pinching the bridge of his nose with his fingers. “What’s that old phrase? ‘Every cloud has a silver lining’?”

  “I think so,” you reply, looking up to where the sunshine has been taken over by clouds which are pregnant with the possibility of rain. Jan snorts.

  “Well then I suppose we have an awful lot to look forward to, eh?”

  He stands up from where he was perching on a barrel of dried herring and heads towards the large barracks tent behind you. You watch as he leaves, and you catch him muttering to himself under his breath.

  “Two hundred days of rain and wind a year and they send us solar panels…”

  Add Engineering (S.1) to your character sheet.

  * * *

  Turn to 1.9.

  1.6

  With stunned silence Jan turns to face you directly. His eyes dart to your face, then across your body. As you shift your weight and cross your arms you move deliberately, suddenly aware of his careful gaze inspecting every aspect of your behaviour. When he speaks, the curiosity in his words is palpable – though the excitement is definitely laced with fear.

  “You want to live here?”

  You nod enthusiastically. Ever since you heard the first call to adventure when the vault was trying to find new explorers you knew where you wanted to go. Somewhere new. Somewhere exciting. Somewhere outside of the bland monotony of the vault.

  In a moment you’re transported back, back to the classes you elected to take to learn more about the old world. The hours you logged learning about the environment and history, but more importantly about the people.

  “They’re all savages.”

  Perhaps a dozen times you heard those words stated as fact. Your teacher was a harsh, fierce man who’d been on expeditions before. He made his opinion of the old world very clear. It wasn’t something to be trusted, it was to be held at arms’ length and feared. And for a while you had agreed with him, curious to start your mission but worried about what it might bring.

  But then you started doing your own studies. Fascination with the old world had swept you up like a rainstorm. Suddenly, you were spending every moment you had reading everything you could find. It seemed like your tutor was wrong. A lot of the people who had been encountered weren’t wily savages. They were humans, surviving in a harsh climate.

  You wanted to go out there and help them. You wanted to start taking a step in the right direction. And the only way to do it was to put down roots here yourself.

  Add Old World Language (S.2) to your character sheet.

  * * *

  Turn to 1.9.

  1.7

  Jan chuckles.

  “Another young ruffian sent to learn some discipline?” he replies, raising his eyebrows in amusement. “Don’t worry - we’re not here to break you. This place will do worse to you than we ever could.”

  As he laughs again you turn to face him, a fixed glare at the side of his head. As his laughter ceases he looks into your eyes, then looks away nervously. For a moment you stare him down silently.

  “Of course I’m not saying you are a ruffian… I just… erm…” he trails off, looking down at his feet.

  The silence continues for a moment more. You can see Gaia suppress a smile in the corner of your vision. As his awkwardness increases he folds and unfolds his arms, looking in every direction attempting to avoid your gaze.

  “Well,” he says finally, “best get back to work!”

  He stands and leaves swiftly, once again avoiding your stare. Your eyes follow him as he walks across the camp to a large tent. As he bends to duck under the half-opened flap you notice just how small he seems; at least a foot shorter than you. He could easily be half your weight too.

  You watch people busying themselves with work, dashing between tents and down the impromptu streets amidst temporary structures. Those around you are a mixed bunch. Most are young, though a handful of older individuals also occupy the camp. People of all genders and backgrounds – a collection of misfits and outcasts, hard to lump into a single group.

  It must be an instinct, you think. An inner quality that they, like you, draw upon in their daily work. A need to survive outside of the confines of the life you were presented at birth.

  In your former life you grew used to being the meanest and the toughest of all the people you knew. You never felt a part of the lifestyle you were surrounded by. In the times when you felt most ill at ease with your life you imagined yourself as a caged animal, trapped by a society built to stifle your potential. Perhaps that wasn’t so far from the truth.

  All around you, you see people walk with the same swaggering confidence you always prided yourself in. Harsh scowls and frowns set in stone. Clenched jaws and scraped knuckles. You feel, for perhaps the first time in your life, as though you are surrounded by people that share your hatred for the gentle softness of the world that coddled you and held you back for years.

  You allow yourself a small smile.

  Add Hand-to-Hand Combat (S.3) to your character sheet.

  * * *

  Turn to 1.9.

  1.8

  “Oh, I see!” he remarks, in poorly veiled surprise. “I don’t think we’ve had any academics stay with us yet…”

  As he speaks, you feel a sense of apprehension in his voice. He squints and scans you up and down, as if looking for some indication of your usefulness to the colony.

  “Have you been a researcher all your life?” he asks, attempting once again to hide his scepticism.

  You nod silently at him, uncomfortable from the suspicion that seems to emanate through his words. Jan hums for a while, seemingly having run out of conversation to have with someone who doesn’t prove themselves.

  “Well,” he says as he stands to leave. “You pull your weight and we’re happy to have all sorts!” He speaks to you the way someone might speak to a child, pandering and pitiful. As he turns to leave you feel a sense of awkwardness overco
me you as you realise you are blushing.

  Although you were used to reactions like his, in this world it feels more intense than it ever has. All of your life you felt a need to prove your worth around those that ran the vault. The teamsters, engineers and builders that you were always taught kept you alive, always occupied a special position of respect that you had never gained and wanted so desperately.

  No matter the breakthroughs you made in your work you were always made to feel like a spare part. Whenever you attempted to talk to anyone about your discoveries you were met with the same reactions: confused, narrowed eyes, and the slow head-nodding of someone who doesn’t really believe what you’re doing is important. You spent your life hidden from the working world in archives and labs, slowly plodding away at your research beneath artificial lighting while the rest of the world fed and protected you. You never had the confidence to cite the depth of your knowledge; never knew how to make the callous-handed and muscle-bound appreciate the brilliance of your mind.

  You knew more, on paper, about the old world than anyone you’d ever met. While every expedition reported back findings and recordings, you were the only one to collect that knowledge together, tie it into some sort of semblance of understanding of the old world. You grew to love it, this place of danger and wonder and adventure outside of the walls of your home.

  But the longer you spent there the more… tedious it became. Not the stories of the old world itself but the same reports of weather, flora and fauna which went by in cycles, never revealing anything you hadn’t already read in a book or a report from the past. You wanted more. You needed more.

  It seemed like an ordinary night, the night you changed your life, but you remembered it as if it were yesterday. You had added the most recent audio log into your official archives and looked around your office. The walls were covered with sketches and photos all depicting a world you had never actually stepped foot into. Even though the place was crowded, it seemed hollow and empty. You sat in silent contemplation for a moment – while a world of possibilities darted across your mind. In an instant a plan was formulated. You picked up a pen and wrote your letter of resignation.

  You count the days in your head.

  * * *

  94.

  * * *

  Just three months ago.

  Add Knowledge (S.4) to your character sheet.

  * * *

  Turn to 1.9.

  1.9

  Sleep doesn’t come easily that night. It’s odd to be on terra firma for the first time in nearly a month. The ground beneath you feels wrong without the gentle sway of the ocean to rock you to sleep.

  You remember what Vola had told you, to trust in yourself. Vola was in her eighties and had taken a shine to you in the vault as a child. You spent a lot of time around her, listening to her stories and songs. You wish she were here right now to believe in you when you couldn’t.

  The next day you wake early. Stepping out from your tent you are met with a biting coldness that stings at your face; at least it helps to wake you up. You pull your jacket tight, placing your boot onto an untouched carpet of frost that sparkles in the early morning sun, and you’re quietly reminded just how beautiful this place really is. The only other company out here for you is at the centre of the camp where a young woman is crouched at the fire pit. Her hands tremble and quake as she struggles to light the pile of tinder and sticks collected there. She doesn’t bother looking at you, either too engrossed in her work or simply not interested.

  With your hands tucked into your armpits you wander out in search of something to do, and find yourself drawn to the only source of noise at the edge of the camp, where the mess tent stands. As you approach you hear the busy clatter of breakfast preparations. The smell of cooked food drifts on the breeze and you breathe in deep, the cold biting at your nose. You exhale, and a cloud of steam billows from you in two thick streams, reminding you of the stories of fire-breathing dragons you were read as a child.

  You stand still for a moment and from the edge of the camp you look out to the old world. Beyond your position stretches a vast open plain of small hills and tall grass. The grasslands sway gently in the wind. Under the rising sun, the frost on every blade shines orange and yellow. As you stare out to the horizon, the land before you rises and falls like the ocean. The earth reverberates gently with the thawing touch of the new day.

  Behind you a bell rings. Not fast and anxious like a fire alarm, it rings in slow deliberate chimes that echo throughout the camp. You’re not sure how long you’ve been looking out across the sunlit sea of grass, but when you turn to head back to the mess tent, a handful of other settlers are beginning to gather.

  You eat in silence at the end of a long table where six other quiet types solemnly chew their porridge and dried fruit. The food, you notice, is much like the rations you ate on the ship and you feel disappointed. You had quietly dreamed all those nights you lay in your ship bunk of what delicacies would await you, meat thick with fat, rich ripe berries bursting juice down your chin as you bit into them. Instead you chew another handful of dry, tough raisins and force them down.

  As you eat, you watch the activity around you, the growing humdrum of life as more and more people stream into the tent. Bleary-eyed individuals yawn, rubbing their eyes as they stand in line. To the far end of the tent a pair of cooks work away at a makeshift kitchen. Twenty, or maybe thirty, settlers are gathered together to start their various day’s activities. The collected heat of their bodies warms the cold air and a small steady blanket of steam rises off of the group of you. Chatter begins to break out and you even hear laughter occasionally. As they eat, the shabby canvas tent feels cosy, almost homely.

  As you scrape at the last remnants of food from your wooden bowl Gaia enters the tent. She looks around for a second until you make eye contact, acknowledging her with a small wave. She crosses the mess, awkwardly knocking people out of the way to get to you. She doesn’t notice the glowers she receives in return. As she sits beside you she leans in close.

  “You have a briefing in twenty minutes,” she says right in your ear in order to be heard over the noise. “Sounds like Viktor and I are scheduled to head back to the vault in a couple of days. Is there anything you left on the boat?”

  Add Mess Tent (F.1) to map near Location 1 (The Voyage).

  “My chemistry set.” Turn to 1.10.

  * * *

  “The first aid kit.” Turn to 1.11.

  * * *

  “My flint and steel.” Turn to 1.12.

  * * *

  “My gun.” Turn to 1.13.

  1.10

  “I knew you would say that,” she says, reaching into her pocket. From it she pulls out a small roll of canvas about the size of a newspaper and places it on the table in front of you. You undo the straps and roll it out, inspecting the vials, tinctures, pipettes and powders brought with you from the vault – some which you had to sneak out from under the noses of the city’s officials. It catches the attention of some diners around you, elbowing each other to point out the strange trinkets.

  “Don’t worry, it’s all there,” Gaia says proudly. “I checked it myself.”

  Although you trust Gaia you cannot help but continue to inspect your equipment, staring at what appears to be a crack on the lens of your miniature microscope, and furrowing your brow.

  “It’s just glass, you can fix it,” she says. You simply let out a huff in response before rolling your kit back up and tucking it away into the inner pocket of your jacket.

  “I’ll never understand you boffin types,” she says with a roll of her eyes, and takes a bite out of an apple she’s managed to swipe. Gaia can be abrasive sometimes but you have to admit you’ll miss her when she leaves in a couple of days. Until then, you’ll enjoy what company of hers you have left.

  Add Chemistry (S.5) to character sheet.

  * * *

  Turn to 1.14.

  1.11

  She lifts the hem of her heavy
coat to her chest, revealing a utility belt and first aid kit around her waist. Reaching back, she unclips it, then lifts it from her hips, fastening the two ends together again, and like a medal drapes it around your neck.

  For a tender moment her hands linger at your neck and the pair of you resemble a couple dancing slowly in the sterile, awkward dances you went to as a teenager. You look into her eyes and say nothing. She looks back and smiles, sliding her hands away from around your neck.

  “You look like a proper doctor now,” she says with a grin.

  “I’m pretty sure doctors look a bit better than this,” you laugh and gesture to yourself.

  “Well, next supply run I’ll bring you a white coat, eh? Help seal the deal.”

  You smile as she leaves, and try to ignore the fact she’ll be gone in a couple of days.

  Add Medicine (S.6) to your character sheet.