REMNANTS | JIKOOK ✔

Chapter 1. Danachi

PROLOUGE

Please do not adjust your screen. This is an information alert from central government. Your normal transmission will resume shortly.

At approximately three a.m. standard hour this morning, the Central Department for Public Health and Civic Protection closed the border gates around the edge of the sterilization wall. We repeat, the border gates around the sterilization zone are now closed. No further traffic between protected and unprotected areas is now permitted. 

This is for your own protection.

Please note, family members separated by this action can apply in writing to the Central Department for Public Health and Control for specified visitation permits. No cross border visitation will be permitted. 

Citizens should be advised that a marshal law is now in effect with a seven p.m. curfew to be enforced across all protected zones. Any citizens found on the streets after this time will be considered hostile. Any citizens attempting to pass through former border gates or across the walls will be considered hostile. 

This is for your own protection.

We repeat, the border gates around the sterilization wall are now closed. This is for your own protection.

In the year Three After Crisis, the protective dome went down. 

●

The air was already turning cold as the last rays of sunlight split the sky in streaks of orange. The setting sun splayed long fingers through the dust the convoy had kicked up and the gritty taste of it hit the back of Jungkook’s throat as he watched the small group working, splitting up their possessions and loading them onto the new vehicle.

It was a bad idea, Jungkook thought to himself. Where they thought they’d find fuel to keep the jeep going was anyone’s guess. Especially the further South they got. This was the last contact base in the territory and Jungkook had had to keep a watchful eye on their own petrol supplies for months. Reinforcements had been promised since the mid summer, now the cool air was whispering of winter, mocking the idea. It was the same all over. 

Angrily, Jungkook kicked out, sending a rock tumbling across the dry, dusty ground. Already he’d been here coming on eighteen months. So much for the three months outpost he’d been promised when he took up this commission. It was good money working this far out; or it had been. If there was anything to spend his money on out here, Jungkook was sure he would discover his pay checks had stopped sometime before the supply trucks.

“Hurry up,” he snapped at the men, focusing his frustration on the way their leader was still arguing with one of Jungkook’s men. “It’ll be dark soon.”

Yoongi, Jungkook’s second in command, turned to him with a frustrated sigh. “They want to barter,” he explained.

“Barter what?” Jungkook asked, stepping forward. “They don’t have anything we want, and we’ve nothing to spare.” Turning to the man he said, “Move on. You’ve got the car you wanted, and good luck to you.”

Gypsies were one of the more annoying elements of the job out here. Constantly arriving in convoys, they wanted to trade or buy items at the last guard point before the Southern wall. No problem, in theory, and indeed when Jungkook first started, the exchanges had been good for both parties. Now the gypsies wanted all the things Jungkook couldn’t spare; food, tools, fuel. Medicine was the worst. They wanted any and all supplies of penicillin Jungkook had on base. And Jungkook certainly had none of that to give, though the lack of medical supplies was one of his best kept secrets. If his men knew they had no protection from one of their worst enemies, he’d have a mutiny on his hands.