Happily Ever After the Apocalypse

Chapter 14: Finding the Power Within

It has been nearly two months since Alexander Hamilton left Serene to find the pistol maker. Early spring is fast approaching, and she's beginning to get antsy. She unconsciously rubs her belly as she tells her grandmother everything about her last encounter with Alexander. 

Vera reflects for a few moments. She generally likes Alexander and appreciates the advantage that he and his Brotherhood have brought to their resistance efforts, but there's something about him that she just can't put her finger on, deep within her soul, that makes her uneasy. Sure, he's smart, capable, and incredibly loyal, perhaps it was the loyalty that troubled her the most. He seems to be loyal to the exclusion of rational thought. Of all the things she has learned about Nework from Mr. Hamilton himself, as well as of her own government, she realizes that sometimes intelligent skepticism of motive, even of those we love, is the ultimate indication of a truly moral person. People, as rare as they are, with the constitution to question the ones they admire most, are the genuinely virtuous. 

It seems to her that Alexander Hamilton is not one of these people.

Vera sighs as she thoughtfully asks, "So, Serene, what do you think about Mr. Hamilton? Do you love him?" Serene's taken aback by her grandmother's frankness, "Well ...no, I don't, but I think that maybe he could be a good father to my child ...if Thomas is not willing... I don't know, I would rather not think about that now. What do you think about what he said about Daddy's pistol? Do you think it really holds that kind of power?" 

Again, Vera reflects carefully, "Well, I really don't know. It seems distantly familiar, maybe something I once read about in an old book or saw in a painting. I'm just not sure. Do you have it now? Let me see it." She takes it from Serene and looks at it from a side profile, "Let's go outside and take a closer look at it. We're smart women, after all. Maybe we can figure out how to make it work on our own."

The cold air nearly takes Serene's breath away as they walk outside. She wraps her scarf tighter around her neck, covering her mouth and nose. She holds up the tin box containing the bullets, "Daddy told me that you have to put these little metal pieces called bullets inside the pistol to make it work." 

Vera looks at the small bullets inside the tin and then looks closely at each nook and cranny of the pistol. She looks down the long hollow tube, as Serene and Alexander Hamilton had done before, but can't really see anything useful in there. It's much too big to put the bullets into. Then, she lets her eyes focus on the rounded part jutting out on each side of the hollow tube. She notices that there are several smaller hollow tubes inside the rounded part. She looks at the metal pieces in Serene's hand and looks back at the small hollow tubes. She picks up one of the pieces and awkwardly tries to push it into one of the small tubes. Although the tube does seem to be the correct size for the metal piece, it's clear that the hole is too small and not the way to fit the metal pieces inside. She sets the bullet she's holding back into the tin box and turns her attention to the back of the pistol.

Serene points her finger to two hook-shapes on the back, "I was playing with it the other day, and I found that you can pull back the top hook. And, if you pull the bottom hook afterwards, it snaps the top hook back into place." Vera pulls the hooks back and find they move exactly as Serene described. 

She looks closer at the back side of the rounded part with the small hollow tubes and notices that a semi-circle shape has been crudely cut out of the metal. Instinctively, she sticks her index finger into the semi-circle divot and pulls. She's astonished that it moves to the side, revealing the back side of the small hollow tubes. Now, she's getting excited. She grabs one of the bullets from the tin and inserts it into one of the tubes. As it slides easily into the tube, she notices that the entire holder is now free to spin on a central axis, revealing additional tubes. She slides the cylinder around and inserts another bullet into the next tube.