The Peacekeepers

Part One; Chapter Thirteen

The Grand Tour

The knock on the door woke me up from a fairly deep sleep. It took me a minute of fighting off instinct to remind myself that there was no immediate danger. I cautiously walked over to the door and slowly opened it. Sheamas was right there.

"Okay Drake. Ready for the tour? I had some extra time so I figured I'd come up by myself and wake you up.

I rubbed my eyes to wake myself up a bit. It's felt like forever since I've had a good night's sleep.

"Yeah man. Just let me get Alice up and get some breakfast in her."

"No need. We got people for that. Someone'll wake her up, feed her and take her out with the other kids. All the children are taken care of by a group of responsible girls and they're watched over by a small group of Peacekeepers. She literally cannot get any safer."

There's literally no reason for me to think he's lying. He's one of the only trustworthy men on the planet.

"I'd be careful waking her up though. She has really bad PTSD. She's busted me in the mouth more than once for waking her up too suddenly."

He also said it'd be "no problem" Is there ever a problem with this guy? We walked down the steps to a busy street filled with Peacekeepers and others.

"Everyone hss a job here. We're civilized people, unlike The Fallen Kings. Everything we do here is to survive and stay organized."

He took me to the Wal-mart building. The place seemed gutted and barren from the outside but inside there were Peacekeepers everywhere doing something. Talking, training, hell many of them were even doing paperwork!

"Well, you're very organized Sheamas." I said to him.

"Well it's important that we are. Not all the people are fighters like us. Some manage the water, the fences, the power, some repair stuff. We have people filling out training reports, scavenging reports, agricultural reports, requisition forms and the like. It's all clockwork Drake."

There was really nothing of interest for me in any of those departments. The place was dimly lit and pretty loud too. The old pharmacy was used as the med bay. Some of the residents actually had a substantial amount of medical training before the war. They were all in their early twenties though.

"Hey Sheamas. How old are you anyway? Just wondering."

"I'm twenty-two years old this past October. How about you?"

I shrugged my shoulders.

"I'll be honest, I don't really remember. I'm anywhere between sixteen or eighteen. The Chaos and the war kinda made years blur together ya know?"

"I understand. I actually had to sit down and do the math to figure out mine. The only reason I can tell ya how old I am is because I got bored and did math. Who'd have thought, right?"

I asked him how they kept the water running and the power up so well and for this long.

"That's actually many of our second jobs. It takes a lot of work to keep this stuff up and running. We got solar panels for electricity and old underground aquefier system for water. It took weeks of nonstop work to get the purification system set up. God, that was a pain in the ass. There's one more person I want you to meet. Gideon. He's our head trainer."

Head trainer? Sheamas told me that their head trainer is a martial artist and the best fighter among the Peacekeepers. I'm actually really excited to meet this guy. We walked into a room that looked like Tybult's old training area at the farm but it was really just a hallowed out staff room.

The very first thing that I saw was a very large man flooring a younger guy with an elbow.

"You're too damn slow kid!" I've heard that before. "If you try and fight a Fallen King like that we're gonna be burying you. Now stand up!"

He turned his attention to us.

"Sheamas, what brings you here my friend? I see we have a new arrival. I'm Gideon." He stuck his hand out for me to shake it. I tightly gripped it and shook his hand.

I introduced myself and went straight to business asking what kind of martial art he practiced.

"I train the youngest, most inexperienced Peacekeepers in Krav Maga. You may not have heard of it. But from why I've heard you really don't need much training."

That says it right there. If he's good enough to be instructing the deadliest martial art ever than he must be some kind of great fighter.

"I'm familiar with it. No wonder The Peacekeepers are a force to be reckoned with. It's pretty hardcore shit."

He laughed a little than excused himself to train (beat on) the trainee. We left and Sheamas continued his tour. He showed me the solar panels around the compound and all of the guard posts. This tour took all of about two hours. It was more of a formality than anything it seemed.

We wound up at the base of operations yet again in a little section bordered off from the others that Sheamas called his office. He wanted some background information on me. I told him my story.About my experience on a farm, my training, mom's death... the life I took. Basically my life story.

"So Sheamas, now that you know all there is to know about me, let's hear about you. I'm curious."

He seemed surprised. It only seemed right. I give him my story he gives me his.

"Wait are you serious?" He asked.

I nodded my head.

"I'm sorry, I just wasn't expecting that. Sure, I'll tell you my story..."