Joshua Gayou - Commune - The Complete Series - A Post-Apocalyptic Survival Box Set (Books 1-4)

“The combined survivors from four of some of the largest tent camps in the western United States, and all that’s left are one-hundred and ninety people? That’s all that made it?”

“There could be more out there,” she said. “Some of those envoys never made it back. Personally, I suspect they met up with people similar to those you encountered coming up the 15.”

“Fuck,” Wang muttered simply.

“Yes,” Olivia agreed.

She continued to roll him along the tracks and alleys of the camp, pointing out specific tents and, in some cases, portable buildings, explaining their function. She took him by the truck yard and showed him which vehicles were still functional and which had been mothballed, abandoned to rust in place for all time. She showed him a long line of Chinooks and Blackhawks, pointedly explaining that the very last of their fuel supply had been expended in his own emergency medical evacuation.

“There they’ll sit,” she said. “Their crews have found their primary skillsets are suddenly obsolete and they work their asses off even now to learn a new trade.”

“How big is a flight crew?” asked Wang.

“What? Why do you ask?”

“Out of forty staff? You can’t have had many of these in the air.”

“No,” Olivia admitted. “There were enough people to operate two aircraft, counting the pilots as well. Even Jeffries, one of the guys who flew out to save you, was originally a CH-47 crew chief. He had to do all kinds of catching up when we decided to ground the last Hook and go over exclusively to the Crash Hawk. There’s not enough of anyone anymore, really. Take my group; a Forward Surgical Team should be a twenty-man group. Well, mine only has four people now—a surgeon, a tech, an anesthetist, and I’m just a combat medic who’s been forced to double as a nurse. We didn’t even all originate in the same team; we were just what was left. We sort of all got jumbled into this bastardized, skeleton team and try to make do with what we have. The surgeon, Montoya, is even teaching the rest of us how to do a lot of things ad hoc, in case anything happens to him. You want to know who actually performed the operation to remove your leg? You’re looking at her. Doc Montoya just stood over my shoulder and coached me as I went.”

She finished talking and only pushed him along for a bit. She had sounded intensely proud about that last part, and Wang had to admit that he was impressed, despite the circumstances. He imagined he would probably puke himself unconscious if he had to cut someone’s leg off.

“What did you do with it?” he asked.

“Huh?”

“My leg. When you… cut it off. What did you do with it?”

“Oh,” she said, sounding a little nervous. “Well, I guess I buried it.”

“You… buried it?”

“Yeah,” she admitted. “Some of the others recommended burning it, but I just couldn’t go along with that. It seemed… I don’t know, fucked up to me. I insisted on burying it. It was all I could come up with. I’m sorry if that was wrong.”

“No,” Wang said, inexplicably touched at the gesture. “I’m… I’m really grateful that you did that. I can’t even explain why; it’s not like I ever gave such a thing much thought. Burning sounds completely reasonable to me. But… even so, thanks. It means a lot.”

He felt her hand on his shoulder; it squeezed briefly and then was gone. Wang had found that she could be like that sometimes. The majority of his interaction with her was punctuated with terse commands, an oddly disturbed sense of humor, and about as much sympathy as one could expect from a seasoned mafia leg breaker. Despite this, there were moments (such as the one which just transpired) where she offered true, unfiltered compassion. They were rare, yes, but they still happened. He enjoyed these momentary lapses more than her usual blast of sarcasm; in a related train of thought, he wondered about the impression he left on others, which naturally led to the panicked image-flash of an enraged Fred Moses coming straight after him like a runaway bulldozer. He shook his head, a physical denial of an unwanted memory that would not fade.

Olivia eventually pushed him by a row of tables populated by a decent-sized group of men and a few women, all of whom wore fatigue pants and olive drab shirts. Some of them had their jackets on as well, but it was clear they were all enjoying a moment of leisure. A few of them were eating, six sat on one end of a table playing some sort of card game, and a few were in the process of stripping their rifles. One of the card players looked up as they rolled by, a brown-skinned man with a buzz cut gone bushy and an immaculately tailored black mustache. He looked at Olivia first and then locked eyes with Wang. A flash of dawning recognition lit his face, and he dropped his cards onto the table immediately. He offered some sort of explanation to the other players as he got up to leave, though Wang failed to hear what he said. The other men grumbled a response and waved halfheartedly as he withdrew, yet many of them watched as he moved around the table and saw where he was going. Wang felt several sets of eyes move over both him and his chair, making him feel nakedly self-conscious. These other men also placed their cards on the table and moved to follow the first; all of them trotted over to Wang’s position together, smiling broadly as they came.

The one with the mustache called out as he approached, “You got him moving around, huh, Lee? Outstanding, Ma’am!” He looked down at Wang and said, “I’m damned happy to see you, bro. Didn’t know if you’d make it for a while, there.” He extended a fist while continuing to smile at Wang. After a moment’s hesitation, Wang made a fist with his own hand and bumped it against the other’s knuckles.

“Name’s Montez,” he said. He introduced the others who had tagged along with him, nodding to each as he said their names: “That’s Hughes, Compton, Smith, Taylor, and Jones.”

One of the men Montez introduced (a shorter black man who appeared to be composed primarily of thin, ropey muscles and a thick network of veins), thumped a fist against his own chest and then stretched it out to lightly tap Wang’s shoulder, saying, “That was some hardcore shit you did, Mr. Wang. Mad respect.”

The others nodded, and there were a few muttered rah’s and hooah’s among them. Without missing a beat, Montez said, “So how you feeling, man? Is the Doc gonna let you out and about on your own any time soon?”

“I, uh—”

“We’re taking things as they come,” Olivia answered. “He’s doing great with the walker, but we can’t let him hit the crutches for real until he heals up a bit more. He at least needs to heal up enough that he can take a fall without ripping everything apart again.”

“Good point,” Montez nodded. He looked down at Wang and said, “You don’t want to rush it. The most important thing for you right now is to start setting little goals and start racking up some wins for yourself. If you try to bite off too much, you could stumble and get frustrated. And frustration ain’t that far off from despair. You don’t want none of that.” He bent over and, making a point to maintain eye contact with Wang, pinched his right pant leg at the knee and lifted, exposing a construct of shiny metal and black composite where his shin should have been. He raised his eyebrows and held Wang’s gaze a few moments longer before straightening up again.

“Listen to Lee. She knows her shit,” he advised. “When you’re good to go, come hang with us. We could use another player; owning Taylor’s ass is starting to get old.”

“Fuck you, Montezuma,” one of the men said; most likely Taylor. Montez nodded at Wang while flashing a bright smile, effortlessly conveying the idea that they were both sharing some secret joke, and then stuck his fist out one more time. Feeling a little dizzy, Wang knocked knuckles with the man.