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

Jake rested his chin in a hand. “Right, so, highly focused and highly intelligent.”

Wang nodded. “You can’t screw with this guy. You want to absolutely mean everything you say to him. He’ll know it if you don’t.”

“Damn,” whispered Amanda. “How do you even deal with someone like that?”

“What about his people?” asked Jake.

“Loyal,” Wang said promptly. “You won’t find any ways in through them, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

Jake shook his head, “No, I wasn’t going in that direction. What about the regular people he has with them? How are they living? In fact, how are they all getting along? As a group?”

An almighty itch erupted in Wang’s missing leg, making him jolt in his chair. Gibs leaned forward, directing a questioning glance his way. Wang shook his head dismissively and began to scratch at his forearm. He said, “I kind of got along better with the Soldiers and the Marines than I did with the civilians.”

“Oh? Why?”

“Hard to describe. I want to say I had more in common with them, but I don’t think that’s the case. Half the time I had difficulty understanding what they were talking about; they used a lot of slang and all. No, I think it was more that I just had a lot less in common with the civilians. They didn’t have a lot to do. The work was kind of divided up between military and non-military types with different tasks going to each group, so you had Soldiers doing stuff like walking patrols, scavenging, building stuff or reconfiguring stations, and of course any fighting. The civilians… well, they mostly just washed clothes, did gopher tasks for the army guys, helped with the cooking, ate, and slept.

“So I guess you could say there was a two class system: civilian and warrior… or, I don’t know…”

“Sheepdog and sheep,” Gibs said.

Wang nodded. “Sure, okay. That. And I was a lot more comfortable around the sheepdogs because they were a lot more easygoing. They were happier; they joked around and stuff. The sheep weren’t like that. They all just kind of sat around like they were always waiting for something. One of them even came to ask me if he could come back to Wyoming with me before he learned that Warren was just going to uproot us all and head north.”

“He wanted to come here with you to get away from the military or just living in the tents?” Jake asked.

“Both. He seemed like he was getting stir-crazy. Well, it seemed like a lot of them were, actually.”

Jake leaned forward slightly in his chair. “They were unhappy.”

Wang thought about it a moment. “Yeah, you could say that.”

“And what did Warren say about that? Or, did he say anything about that?”

Wang shook his head. “He didn’t spend a lot of time worrying about how happy people were. He seemed to devote most of his energy to locating supplies, sanitation, defense. I got the idea he knew it was a problem but, well… the situation never stopped being critical, you know? It’s not like we were on the verge of dying, but it always seemed like there was another thing we were just about to run out of. There were a lot of disasters to be planned around, so, you know. Crisis management. He gave orders and expected them to be followed.”

“Huh,” Jake muttered.

“I know that look, Jake. What are you thinking?” asked Amanda.

He glanced at her briefly before looking at Wang and then Gibs in turn. He lowered his gaze to a point in space between them all and thought for a moment, breathing softly between parted lips. Finally, he said, “Have you ever heard of the Irresistible Force paradox?”

“What… irresistible force, immovable object?” Gibs asked.

Jake nodded. “Just so. The question is posed: what happens when one meets the other. It’s a paradox because the two premises are incompatible.”

“I’m sorry, Jake, but you’re starting to lose me,” Amanda said.

“You’re not the only one,” Gibs said. “How is this helpful, outside of the fact that it illustrates what a pain in the nuts all this is?”

“It’s helpful because it’s not actually a paradox. The entire principle is flawed.”

“Huh?” Amanda grunted.

“It’s a false dilemma,” said Jake. “There’s no distinction between the force and the object because they are one and the same. An irresistible force essentially has infinite inertia, yes? If a thing has infinite inertia, its momentum cannot be changed. Thus it is immovable. They are the very same thing; indivisible.”

Gibs shook his head. “What the hell is this, a lesson in physics? Two can play at that—you wanna know what the speed of light is? It’s the speed at which you’re pissing me off right now. What is the goddamned point, Jake? What are you getting at?”

Jake nodded to himself, not looking at any of them. “They’re the same thing,” he repeated softly. Finally, he looked up at Amanda and said, “How’s our food supply looking these days?”

She leaned back in her chair. “Jake, what?”

“We haven’t had a big dinner where we all sat down together in a while now. I feel like we’re overdue.”

“Well, Jesus-goddamning-Christ,” Gibs barked. He erupted up from the couch and started yanking his coat on in fitful, jerking motions.

“Gibs?” asked Jake.

“Oh, don’t fucking mind me, Jake. I’ve just had a religious awakening.” He pivoted and jabbed a flat palm straight at the other man’s chest. “I’ve just realized that reincarnation is real. It has to be. There’s no goddamned way on Earth that anyone came to be as frustrating as you in a single lifetime.” He stomped out of the room, yanked open the front door and, storming over the threshold, shouted, “No goddamned way!”

The door slammed, causing Amanda and Wang to jerk in their seats.

“Maybe wait for him to cool down a bit before inviting him to the dinner,” Jake suggested.

On the morning after Otto Warren arrived in Jackson, Amanda awoke before dawn, hastily brushed her teeth at the washbowl, and was still shrugging into various articles of clothing even as she side-stepped down the stairs. As she descended, she nosed the presence of coffee on the air. Jake had been through already, as she knew he would. She worked faster, hopping on one foot while pulling a boot over the other by the front door before switching to the other foot. She straightened up, panting a little, and retrieved her jacket from the hook. She was still pulling it over her right arm as she stepped through the door out into the dark, ice-cold morning. It was the last day of April.

She ran into Jake as soon as she stepped out onto the porch. He stood at the railing with his back to her, coffee cup in hand. Amanda was so shocked at having simply run into him like this that she only stood there speechless, her forgotten gloves held limply in one hand.

“I wanted to see you before I left,” he said quietly.

“Oh, what about?”

His head turned slightly in her direction. “Nothing. I just wanted to see you.”

“Oh.”

“Coffee in the kitchen.”

“Thanks,” said Amanda. “I’ll be right back.”

A few minutes later she stood next to him on the porch, drinking coffee and awaiting the sunrise. He’d said he wanted to see her, but he didn’t look at her when she came out to stand beside him. His face only softened, and he hid his smile behind taking a sip.

“Lizzy’s still asleep?” he asked.

“Yeah. What’d she get up to yesterday, do you know? I haven’t seen her sleep so hard in forever.”

“She punched herself out yesterday, I expect; I got her that heavy bag…”

Amanda glanced at him, mildly confused. “You got it? Where the hell was I?”