We Rule the World

XX

Month Eight, Year One

8:03AM

Natasha Worthington was on duty at the water purifiers. It was a boring job, all she had to do was watch them and make sure they were working, if not then she was meant to contact the Council and either James Locke or Adam Marx-Kahn would come out and deal with it, and with the blizzards and harsh snowfall calming they would be able to mobilise sooner if needed.

This had been her job ever since the water purifiers had been made and since then they had broken down plenty of times which had led to Adam and James coming here many times, and thanks to those times she knew a little about mechanics and was confident that she could fix some of the problems that might come up. It was a skill that she never thought that she would get in life but the Event changed everything.

Even though she was quite laissez-faire about life she already knew where her life would have gone if not for the Event, she would get out of school and work for a little still smoke weed as a release and eventually she would find a guy and they would probably get married. It wouldn't be a glamourous life but it sounded good enough, then the Event happened and they were all forced to suffer and adapt.

Some good things had happened to her though, she had ditched Henri Baker when she realised that he wasn't the kind to adapt and survive like she thought he would be, now she had her eyes on either Silas Chapman or Michael Kowalski, but by the way things were going it was looking as if she and Michael might be becoming a thing yet there was always the looming shadow that Silas might sweep in. She had also managed to continue smoking weed thanks to finding a new supplier in Michael, so things were starting to look up.

Walking to the waterfront, she watched as the pumps sucked up the water and tossed them into a large burning cylinder, heating the water until it was good to drink, then after a time passing the water into a large water tank that was hooked up to the machines. The sounds they produced was loud but over time Natasha started to find them soothing, even at this early in the morning she enjoyed the sound.

It was looking out at the middle of the river that she saw how nearly stagnant it was, only a light current pushing the water out. The river had been like this since the Event when the Dam was shut off, she remembers summers here when the weather permitted a swim and how this river would be packed from end to end as the shoreline was nothing but small rocks making swimming painful there, but here it was perfect. That was before the water purifiers were needed here, back when it was a perfect picture of civility.

Natasha moved off to the next purifier and checking it out before a noise attracted her attention. It was like the river suddenly got a boost of energy and looking towards the middle she watched as the currents started to pick up and lap each other, she watched this new invigoration start breaking apart the last remnant of the ice rushing it out of view further down the stream until there were none left but this push that the water suddenly had.

Watching as the last of the ice rushed away Natasha now wondered what was happening to make the water run like it used to.

*

1:11PM

Walking into the room without any reservations, Effy witnessed what she had been hearing on the grapevine, laid-out in his bed Silas seemed to be comfortable but in pain, an icepack resting on his crotch and Ralphe at the end of the bed looking bored. Well bored before Effy came in, the second he saw her his face lightened up and he rushed off the bed to meet her.

Before speaking her attention was turned towards a male-mannequin that sat near the door, the thing was completely naked except for the plain looking metal chest-plate that was dinted in several spots all over the heavy metal, it was a constant instigator of wonder for Effy, the second she would see it was the second she would start trying to imagine what happened at University Point. It looked heavy even for the fake person to wear. To Effy, so much wrong had happened at University Point and she knew most of the others agreed. They had lost two people, Chris and Bradley whose lives had been taken as Silas and the others took so many other lives. She done the right thing and organised a service for them and they were buried at the cemetery with all the others who had died after the Event, it was heartbreaking to see how everyone reacted to their deaths as they were told a fake story rather than the truth.