I
‘Some say we won’t have to worry about the air soon.’
She sat with her legs tucked behind her, fiddling with a screwdriver.
‘I still don’t want to risk anything,’ he chuckled, ‘those tanks may be be bulky, but hell - I’d rather be uncomfortable than choke to death.’
She seemed puzzled by his sense of humour. I caught her gaze.
‘Finally...’, she laughed. I was suddenly aware that I was awake. I reached out to touch my face. She brushed away my hand and sat to down next to me. Her arm extended to dab my head with a light brown rag. I tried to prop myself up against, what I presumed to be a wall, but she pushed me down.
‘Don’t struggle.’, she reasoned. Her eyes wandered around my face. ‘You seem okay.’, she concluded. She stood up, allowing me to move freely. ‘We found you on the side of the road. You were out cold. What happened?’, she enquired.
Two figures started to come into focus. They appeared to be working on some sort of machine. They both looked up at me, but soon returned to their work. I tried to remember but I could not. I shook my head.
‘I do not remember.’, I replied, struggling to breathe.
An engine groaned in the distance. The ground felt like it was moving. I stumbled to my feet. She looked concerningly at me.
‘Huh...’, she remarked, peering over her shoulder. She nodded, ‘I’m Ida’, she continued, ‘this is Mike. Golov and Reneé are over there, repairing the radio.’
Reneé looked up and offered a wave. A pair of small glasses sat at the tip of her nose; her unkempt hair sat just above her shoulders. Large brown eyes were perched above subtly defined cheekbones, complimented by her fair complexion.
I choked a greeting of hello, followed by a fit of sporadic coughing. Ida helped me down to the ground, placing a mask on my face.
‘Leave it on for a few minutes. It’ll clear anything out of your lungs.’ Her straight eyebrows gave her a perpetual expression of nonchalance. ‘You must’ve been out there for at least a day. Never heard of anyone surviving that long out in the wastes.’
I looked at her bemused. Mike remarked something about luck. I sympathised with him; we both had little time for the tedious task of conversation.
He wore a dark blue boiler suit and worn, brown leather loafers. He had a widow’s peak, that interrupted his forehead; pointing down at his nose. There was an air of wisdom about him, despite only appearing to be in his mid-thirties. A long gash down the side of his neck lead the eye to a small, almost unintelligible tattoo under his jaw.
A burst of radio static overwhelmed the sound of the engine. Reneé looked pleased. Golov turned down the dial and started tuning. After a few moments an indistinct voice pulsed.
Golov turned round to Ida and Mike, ‘This is it.’ He spoke with a thick Russian accent. His shirt cried into his body. It was clear that food was far and in between. He was young. His skin was somewhat darker than the others, but his bright blue eyes and light shaggy blonde hair disagreed.
Reneé wrote down all she could hear in a notepad, ‘NCR’ written in large, bold letters at the top of the page. The connection was lost. ‘We need a new resonator. We should be passing over the border soon enough.’, Golov decided.
A few minutes passed. I was soon able to breathe independently. I was promoted to sitting on the battered couch with Ida.
‘So, what’s your story, stranger?’, she asked.
