Nicholas Smith - The Biomass Revolution

Lupai brushed his long brown hair out of his face and sat down across from Creo and Nathar, cracking a grin full of pearly white teeth. He nodded at his two guards and they disappeared into the dark smoke of the pub, hiding in the corners and waiting to be beckoned again.

“So, I hear you two have had a tough week,” he said, smirking and pulling a half-spent pack of cigarettes from the bowels of his trench coat. “The Tin Cans finally caught up to you?”

“It was only a matter of time,” Creo responded.

Lupai paused, scratching a match against the wood table and lighting his cigarette. He took a deep drag and exhaled the smoke into the air, watching it disappear in the cloud above their booth.

He laid the burning cigarette down on the table and folded his hands. A look of seriousness washed over his face, his smile disappearing in the dim light.

“You have my sympathies, but this is a dangerous time. So let’s get to the details quickly, shall we? How about you two tell me what you need and I’ll tell you what I can provide.”

“We need new recruits, at least half a dozen of them, and…” Creo said, hesitating.

“And we need some explosives,” Nathar piped in.

The brightness in Lupai’s eyes seemed to grow with every pass of the loosely dangling light above their booth.

“We need double the explosives we bought from you last time,” Nathar continued.

“Ah.” Lupai said, sitting back in the booth and folding his arms, his eyes studying the two soldiers across from him.

He took a deep breath and leaned back towards the table. “Your request comes at a bad time,” he whispered, turning to see if anyone was listening.

“Fear runs rampant in Rohania right now. Those who have sympathized with your cause in the past have lost hope. The CRK has been advertising the attack last week everywhere. They say the TDU is gone, eradicated…” he paused again.

“I don’t know if I can come through with this many men. And the explosives, I can’t sell them to you if I don’t know what they’re going to be used for,” he finished.

Creo got up from his seat, Nathar quickly following him. “You know we can’t tell you what they’re for, which is why Obi trusted you in the past. If you can’t meet this request, then we’ll find someone else,” Creo said.

“Times have changed, gentlemen. That stunt you all pulled in the trolley station a couple of weeks ago. It killed a lot of innocent people. I don’t like it when my weapons kill innocent people, but I’m sure we can work something out,” he said, revealing his pearly white teeth again and motioning the two soldiers back into their seats.

“I suppose my policy can be bypassed, if, say, you assure me collateral damage will be kept at a minimum and…” Lupai paused again, his grin getting wider. “If the price is right. Do you get my drift?”

Creo and Nathar nodded in agreement, settling back into the booth.

Lupai smiled again. “I can spare four men right now. That is it. I’m sorry, but until the TDU reemerges with another attack to give this area hope, men will be in short supply.”

“Four will work,” Creo said reluctantly.

Lupia offered his hand across the table. “We have a deal then. Your men and supplies will be waiting for you at this address,” he said, handing Creo a small slip of paper.

“If you need anything else, you know where to find me,” he said, scooting out of the booth and disappearing back into the crowd.

Nathar and Creo both took another swig of their ale. “Let’s get back to the junkyard. This freaking place gives me the creeps,” Nathar said.

Creo caught one last glimpse of Lupai before he followed Nathar out the closest exit. This guy better be as good as Obi says he is, he thought, heading into the dark bowels of the alleyway.

Time: 7:35 p.m. February 23, 2071.

Location: Immigrant Camp #4. Rohania, Tisaia

Mulia jumped off the back of an old pickup before the guard riding in the bed could push him onto the dirt street below. A squad of Knights marched by him, their armor clanking noisily. It was a sound he had learned to accept, one as common as the morning alarm.

He paused to glance up at the familiar sight of immigrant camp #4. It was dusk, and the search lights on the guard towers rising far above him were already brighter than the moon hovering above them. There was never a moment of true darkness in the camp. Never a reprieve for the exhausted immigrants, rounded up like livestock and forced to live in tents, before being deported back into the Wastelands.

The camp was surrounded by monstrous electric fences and backed up to the great walls. There was no escaping. Anyone that tried ended up dead.

The only way into camp was a 20 foot tall metal gate. It screeched open three times a day. Once in the morning for immigrants lucky enough to have a job; again at three in the afternoon, for any newly rounded up immigrants, and then at dusk, when the immigrants returned from their jobs.

Mulia ran his hand through his greasy, thinning hair, waiting for the gate to open. He watched a pair of Knights striding in unison towards him like a robotic centipede, their armor clanking as they walked.

“Move it,” said one of the Knights.

Mulia jumped out of the way, dropping his hands to his sides and his gaze to the ground. Eye contact with the guards wasn’t forbidden, but for the past four years in captivity Mulia had never looked a Knight in the eye. He knew his role and accepted it. It was this mentality that helped him form a mutual relationship of convenience with nearly every guard in the camp. He did this by showing them respect and following their every command. It wasn’t that he lacked a conscience or respect for himself, he simply wanted to survive. And so far he had done exactly that.

There were also the memories from his past that played a distinct role in his survival. He vaguely remembered his childhood, but his journey to Tisaia was burned into his memory like a tattoo. From the time the raiders pillaged the shanty town he grew up in, to the subsequent trip his father financed to smuggle his family into Tisaia, these memories were as much as part of him as the scars on his back.

Mulia knew what life was like outside the walls, and he would do anything to keep from going back out there. He would rather kiss the boots of the Knight who gave him the scars on his back than be thrown back into the hell and misery of the Wastelands.

He looked back down at his feet and saw the radiation scars lining both of his legs. Every day he remembered how he got them and the cave he and his parents took refuge in when the trip to the storm drains went astray. His family hadn’t made it more than 20 miles before the same group of raiders caught up with them and cornered them in a cave. Their guide took off the moment he saw the raiders, but his family was not so lucky.

It took only a few days for the symptoms of radiation poisoning to manifest. His mom and sister didn’t live much longer than that. He would never forget watching his sister, the life slowly draining from her, a combination of terror and confusion burning in her eyes. Nor would he forget the sores and boils over his Mother’s arms and head where her hair had fallen out. And worst of all was his last image of his father, firing his shotgun harmlessly at the Raiders while their bullets tore through his soft flesh.

Ironically, it was the guide that saved Mulia after the pirates had taken what they wanted and left him for dead. The skinny, toothless man dressed in raggedy tan military fatigues carried him all the way to the great Tisaian walls without saying a word. He turned Mulia over to a sympathetic family living in Rohania. They tried to help him, but his wounds were too severe so they took him to a hospital where he spent a month healing. He never found out why the guide returned for him. Was it a sense of regret from abandoning his family, or something else? He would never know.