Nicholas Smith - The Biomass Revolution

After much deliberation, he selected a young man who was in the process of purchasing two bags of tomatoes. He didn’t recognize this man and was quite positive they had never met. This was step one. Find someone he didn’t know, someone who had never given him food before. Next, he would approach them when their hands were full and they were preoccupied. Finally, he would quickly spout out a story explaining why he was in desperate need of a meal. There were countless stories he had used in the past. His favorite was the CRK narrative; it was something all Rohanians could relate to.

“Sir, do you have a moment?” Leo asked, approaching the man from behind.

The customer turned slightly. “What is it?” the man asked, his gaze falling on Leo’s tattered clothing.

“Sir, the Tin Cans, they took everything. My last credits, my food, everything. I have nothing left. Can you please spare a few tomatoes?”

The man stiffened. He scratched his small nose uncomfortably. “Why did they do that?” he asked curiously.

Leo paused. No one ever asked why. “They… uh… they thought I was a TDU sympathizer. And when they found out I wasn’t one they kept all my belongings anyways,” Leo said, stuttering.

The man raised a brow. “Are you a TDU sympathizer?”

“I’m hungry, sir. That is all. Can you please spare a tomato or two?”

The man looked over Leo’s shoulders into the crowd, clearly growing annoyed.

“I need to get going.”

“Just one tomato, sir, please?” Leo pleaded.

The man let out a huff. “Fine, if you get out of my way you can have a tomato,” he said, grabbing the two bags from the vendor and placing them on the ground. He scanned the produce and grabbed the smallest tomato off the top.

Leo took it graciously. “Thank you sir, thank you,” he said, backing away and disappearing into the crowd with a grin on his face. The ripe tomato exploded as he bit into it, the juices racing down his chin. He brought his hand to his chin, wiping away the excess juice and licking his fingers clean. In the distance he could see an empty park bench, the perfect place to find his next customer.

It was almost noon and the crowd was thicker, common for the lunch hour. People were searching for a quick bite to eat between shifts and looking for a bargain. It was the perfect time to get his next meal.

The cold metal of the park bench sent a chill up his damaged back. His ragged coat was full of holes. It was on his ‘to replace’ list, but a warm coat was hard to come by in Rohania, and he didn’t expect to get his hands on a decent one this winter.

He bit into the tomato again, scanning the crowd for another unsuspecting shopper. In the center of the market there was a bronze statue of a middle-aged man, sitting on a chair and reading a book to a young boy on his lap. Leo didn’t need to see the worn engraving at the bottom to know it read Lincoln and Tad . It was an artifact from the old world, a surviving clue from before the Biomass Wars, when education was an investment and books were valued.

Leo could only vaguely remember his own childhood now. It was so long ago, before the oil wells dried up and the nuclear tipped rockets sailed across the oceans, a time when men marveled in their creations and resources were plentiful for all. But it was simply not to be. Men had become experts at building, producing and manufacturing, but sadly, they were better at destroying these creations.

In the distance he watched a pair of leaves chase each other in a fickle wind. He watched them sail back and forth around the statue. They came to rest on the boot of a hefty man, who paid no attention to the insignificant leaves. He appeared to be in an argument with another man, flailing his hands in the air as they talked.

Leo crept forward, his eyes trained on these two strangers; his curiosity was building like a cat fixating upon its prey. He shoved the remaining bit of tomato in his mouth and stood up to get a better look. Something was different about them—something told him he had seen them before.

They were both dressed in aged thermal jackets, very uncommon for a Rohanian but not incredibly rare. It wasn’t the jackets or their thick scarves, which could be used as dust masks in the Wastelands, that gave them away. It wasn’t even the impression of their pistols inconspicuously hidden in their cargo pants either. It was their boots. Leo never mistook the boots of a TDU soldier. They all wore the same type; black, steel toed, and stained by the dust of the tunnels where the TDU operated.

Leo smiled. In another life he must have been a police officer, he told himself. His detective skills were unrivaled. He chuckled and shook his head in amusement at the two foolish soldiers. Not a week after the attack and they show up in Rohania and they didn’t think to change their boots? No wonder they were losing the war.

Leo recalled what he had read in the Lunia Post . He snagged one of the free copies the State distributed the day after the TDU’s headquarters were reportedly destroyed. He knew better to believe anything in the Post though. It was controlled by the State and their attempt at convincing Rohanians the TDU was gone had failed yet again. It wasn’t the first time they had tried. The State had issued the same propaganda in the past, the headlines reading, “TDU Destroyed.”

Leo cautiously made his way through the dense crowd, chuckling to himself. The fact that the State believed free papers would spread their rhetoric, considering the literacy rate in Rohania wasn’t even 50 percent, was laughable.

“Ah, I remember now, Commander Obi and his loyal comrade Ajax,” Leo muttered under his breath, making his way towards the two soldiers.

He had met the soldiers a few years back when he still worked in the smuggling business. If they were still alive, then there was still hope for the TDU.

“Get out of my way!” yelled a muffled voice Leo knew could only be from the breathing apparatus of a Knight. He turned and saw three Knights racing through the crowd, their assault rifles drawn.

“Move, move, move!” another one of the faceless Knights yelled.

Panic rushed through Leo as he followed the screaming crowd towards any exit from the market, pushing a young girl out of his way.

“Hey!” her mother yelled out in defense.

“Sorry,” was all Leo could muster, before he disappeared back into the crowd.

He turned quickly to look for the Knights. He was gaining ground on them, but he had lost track of Obi and Ajax. If the two were caught the TDU really would be in danger of falling apart. Both soldiers were well known in Rohania, and were heroes in a war which had so far been very one sided. “Shit, where are they?” he cursed under his breath.

Leo pushed forward, his old legs protesting and groaning with every move as he clawed through the patrons. Finally he made his way into an alleyway, the brick buildings passing by in a blur. To his left was Sacred Heart, an abandoned church from the early 21st century. He knew its passages well and slept there many restless nights. To his right was an entrance to the Boondocks, a street the Knights would normally avoid.

I need to make sure they escape, he thought, running past the church and market in hope of catching sight of Obi and Ajax.

He rounded another street corner just as a thick arm reached out and grabbed him by his collar, yanking him clear off his feet and slamming him into the brick wall of a building.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing, old man?” his attacker yelled.

Dazed, Leo’s vision slowly came back into focus. The blurriness finally subsided and his eyes fell upon the scruffy chin of Ajax.

A smile instantly raced across Leo’s face.