Man's Down

The Wreck

The day was good. We all cooperated, able to talk now we knew each other better. We made a good distance that day. Soon we would be in England, and I could find Summer, and I could find a job, and we could find a small house to stay in and all would be well. I knew it. Stephen was looking at a cut he made on his leg.
"Got it from the..." he hesitated "What were they? The bombs?" He looked at
Lucy.
"I noticed when I came out of the building that there was a metal rod sticking out of one of the buildings. I walked over to it and took it out. It was a long, rusted rod, burnt at the tip. It also said "made in the USA" on the side. I began to theorise and look into it. I was interested in something similar to this. I remember my grandad saying that he remembers the Cold War. He stated that between 1968-1983, Russia deployed a Fractional Orbital Bombardment System. It was used to put nuclear warheads into orbit. When they wanted to bomb a country, they stopped it orbiting and it would have crashed down in a number of minutes. Scary, I know. But in 1967 a treaty outlawed being able to put any large weapons in space. However, people found a loophole. It only prohibited biological, radioactive or chemical weapons to be allowed. But the rods were allowed. America put up a spaceship carrying these rods in 2013. This meant that they could drop them any time they wanted. And they gain momentum, which means they come down quickly, gain speed and the people on the other end can't defend as they go so fast. They waited quite a long time though."
"I don't understand. France didn't steal from America, they stole from England." Stephen looked confused.
The boy, who was listening in for a while now turned around. "Why are we fighting anyway?"
"Do you not know?" He shook his head. "Have you heard of the Malthus paradox?" We all shool our heads. "Basically, it says that if we overpopulate, there'll not be enough supplies to supply everyone. And since we started getting greedy, phosphorous supplies went down. Morocco is allies with the United States and since America is allies with England, England got some food and resources. So when France tried to take it from them, they retaliated. England began to attack France, so soon they were at war. The U.S. didn't have many ways of attacking France on its own, so they dropped the rods. Of course, France couldn't defend since the rods fall at mach 10, as well as the fact that they are so thin. It was genius." We sat looking, stunned.
"How do you know all this?" I asked.
"Mild autism. I absorb facts like a sponge." She laughed.

The sun set again, glistening over the sea. It was so chilly. Stephen was smoking over the edge of the ship, and I stood next to him.
"She's pretty today, isn't she?" I asked him. He looked at me with a raised brow. "The sea."
"Oh yeah." He took another puff.
"You know you shouldn't smoke, right? Specially with how much they cost nowadays."
"I know. It's just with all this war and stuff. I just can't not smoke with all that's going on." I grabbed his shoulder.
"I'm going to sleep now. Put your fag out when your done." I walked into the deck, hoping for this one night to go uninterrupted. Just one night. Just one night.