The City - PewdieCry

3: Pyrotechnics

'You gained basically nothing.' I thought to myself as I awoke the next morning to the sunshine. I lay on my stomach, facing the windows and staring out them into the waking city. Last night had basically been a failure. Sure, I'd learned about Pewdie, but nothing that I needed to know. I needed to find out why he was here so that I could relay the information to John. For all we knew, he could be a major threat that would be a much bigger problem later.

On top of that he managed to pull the story of my father from me, and all of the emotions I learned to bottle came with it against my will. I learned to let that go, keeping my mother close at heart and dismissing my father as crazy. He and the three other soldiers that were always angry, and pushing the other troops around much to my dismay. He had to go, he wasn't leading us right, and having to pull all of these old memories and dust them off gave me an emotional workout. After all, the soldier that beat him and exiled him had been me.

I stood, pulling boots on as I hadn't even bothered to strip last night after returning from my late night meeting. I had learned nothing new, I would have to reschedule and pull the information out of him as he had me. Pewdie would learn sooner or later that people in this city learned to be rough, and he would have to join them if he wanted to stay here.

I went downstairs for breakfast, but did not bother eating with the rest of the gang. I took a second tray after asking about Wilson, and made my way downstairs. Wilson was an old man, older than John, who had seen times before the nuclear war had erupted, and he'd been with my father and my mother. He had lived through my childhood, and was the closest thing I had to family. He was the blacksmith as well, residing in the basement with a few other soldiers where we kept prisoners and made weapons. He was the person I went to for personal advice, and the only one I trusted aside from Matt. I brought him a platter of eggs and some bread, and he stared at it, standing behind the bar that he usually worked on. It was covered in various powders, and beaten down from years of usage. He stared at it with bright blue eyes before giving me a toothy grin. He was much shorter than I and most others, and hobbled around the side of the bar to join me as I pulled up a seat.

"What brings you here, Cry?" he caught himself, nearly speaking my true name aloud. The name that only my parents and trusted people knew. I hadn't even told Matt of my true identity, but since Wilson had kind of been there at my birth, even told my stories of my childhood, he already knew.

"What, I can't bring you breakfast?" I demanded, looking at him as he scarfed down what was in front of him.

"Oh no, that's perfectly fine. I prefer when I don't have to move my old bones up the stairs to get it myself." I made a mental note to have someone bring him meals so he wouldn't stress himself. "However, you usually don't make that face unless something is on your mind."

"What face? This is just my face. I'm wearing a mask- what? Can you help me or not?" I demanded after much stammering and blushing. He could read me through a ceramic cover over my face; he knew me too well.

"It depends on what it is." Wilson replied, finishing his bread and staring at his food, not bothering to look at me. I rolled my eyes at him, finishing the rest of my own food and turning to him.

"I want you to help me to perform some pyrotechnics tonight." I admitted, and he looked at me abruptly with a grin.

"Why didn't you just say so?" he asked, handing me his tray and striding back behind the counter on his stubby legs. He quickly arranged an assortment of powders, setting some aside and pulling others out, opening containers to get a whiff of the contents, and moving things around. "If you want, we could have some recruits run to the park to gather some flowers. We could change the colors."