Remainers

To Those in the Future, Part 4

Marianne Ackerton had never wanted for anything in her life.

Yes, she had been born in a world a half-step away from death. Pollution clouded the skies, and war brought chaos to nearly every country. Every day brought bad news, and society was on the brink of collapse.

To Marianne, however, life seemed normal – at least, as normal as a daughter of a rich tycoon could be. She had everything she could ever ask for, and while there were some signs of strife she could not avoid noticing, her family did whatever they could to distract her from it.

By some miracle, despite being pampered from a young age, Marianne never became spoiled or entitled. Part of it, ironically enough, was probably due to Paul Ackerton being a chronically negligent father. Because he never had time to parent his daughter himself, her raising was largely left to her tutors, and she had a particularly passionate one who drilled into her the importance of morals and justice. Paul often did scoff at the tutor's long-winded speeches, but never cared enough to actually do anything about it.

The reason why was likely because Marianne was never expected to take much of a role in the running of the Ackertons' many businesses. Most high-ranking positions were already filled by either the many bootlickers insistent on scrambling for anything they could get or one of Paul's many children. This meant she had no need to learn the ruthlessness needed for business acumen.

And so, Marianne grew into a twenty-two year old woman with an outlook on life that was quite different than that of her siblings. She loved nature, and though most of the natural world was ruined, the power of Ackertons managed to wrangle her a small garden for her to work on in her private abode. When they evacuated, her brother Derrick had arranged for the garden to be moved to the shelter, so that she could continue to care for plants even within the shelter.

And that was something Marianne did so happily. She did not mingle with people well, so the shelter did not appeal to her. Instead, she stayed in a little cottage offered to her by the rest of the Ackerton family, where she lived alone and attended to her garden. She saw nobody aside from her family members, and knew little about the goings-on of the shelter otherwise.

For one year, Marianne lived like this. She had little want of anything, and she paid no notice to the world outside her little bubble. But even she had begun to notice that things had gone awry, and that unease had begun to plague the shelter.

The first hint came from her brother, Derrick. He would often visit rarely due to having duties that took him away for days at a time, but recently he had been visiting her quite frequently. Marianne, having noticed this, inquired as to the reason behind the increased visits, but he didn't answer her.

The second hint happened when Marianne found that she had nearly run out of fertilizer. Usually, Derrick would bring whatever she needed, but his recent unease made it clear that she shouldn't rely on him too much. As such, she attempted to make her way to the quartermaster herself. She wrapped herself in a thick cloak to obscure her appearance and walked out into the shelter.

On the surface, everything seemed normal. The residents of the shelter went about their business, taking care of whatever duties they were assigned. However, she could feel the tension in the air. People were muttering to each other under their breath, and others walked through without looking at anyone. The sense of security the shelter once held was lost, and an air of distrust and disdain seemed to set into the area.

It was very clear that something had happened. Unfortunately, she had little way of finding out exactly what that was. Even walking around in a disguise was tough for her to begin with, having never spent much time interacting with others. She certainly didn't have the constitution to go sleuthing.