Chapter Fifty-Six – Speaking Up

Chapter Fifty-Six – Speaking Up

“North America is an interesting study in the long-term effects of propaganda. Most countries have a strong media presence that constantly repeats to their citizens that their country is the best.

That was, until everything fell apart.”

–Excerpt from A History of Patriotism and Propaganda, 2031

***

“You’ve been busy,” Gomorrah said as I sat down next to her.

“Yeah, I guess so,” I said.

It certainly wasn’t wrong. Lucy and I had spent the better part of two hours standing in more or less the same spot and talking to an entire ensemble of people. I think Lucy had planned it, first targeting some social folk who would welcome her questions, and then waiting for their plus-ones to come and join in on the conversation. That eventually led to more and more folk approaching us. I think the plan was to create a space where it was acceptable to just come over and chat.

I’d shaken more hands in those two hours than I had in the last eighteen years.

It was probably for the best though, that I didn’t get more than two or three minutes to chat with each person. Any more than that and Lucy butted in to guide them to some other conversation–in a manner that was disturbingly similar to how she handled the kittens–but I managed to mention that I was here because Burringham agreed to help me fix the sewers a dozen times.

Some of those people were important looking guys and gals, CEOs and shit, and a lot of them seemed pretty eager to impress.

They reminded me a bit of the younger kids at the orphanage, the way they looked up to Lucy and I and really wanted to make us… care or whatever about their little companies and their recent promotions and shit.

And just like the kids at the orphanage, I figured I could get them to do shit for me, just because of that desire to impress.

It was seriously strange, and entirely exhausting.

“I’m more tired now than after that night we spent in those caves,” I said.

“Caves?” Frannie asked. She was sitting on Gomorrah’s other side, nursing a rather fancy (though I imagined non-alcoholic) drink.

“They were mines,” Gomorrah said. “This little nowhere town called Black Bear. They had a small off-shoot of the last incursion to hit the city.”

“Gom and I cleaned it up,” I said. “It wasn’t all that fun.”

Lucy shifted in her seat next to me. “You didn’t tell me all that much about it,” she said.

I shrugged. “It wasn’t all that interesting? I mean, it was scary. We had to scout through these big caves.”

“Tunnels. Or more precisely mineshafts,” Gomorrah corrected. “The antithesis dug themselves in and started to collect biomass. I think the idea was that they’d be hard to root out after a while and then they would spread out more.”

“I mean, to be fair, it kind of almost worked? If it wasn’t for Deus Ex and her weird Family gang finding them, they might have grown for a while. I guess. They did attack the town though, so maybe not.”

“I’m sure the two of you were very brave,” Lucy said.

“Cat kept blowing things up, usually while within the blast radius,” Gomorrah tossed me under the bus.

“And you almost lit me on fire,” I shot back. “Like… several times.”

“But you both came out of it alive and well, right?” Lucy asked. “So I guess you worked well together.”

I turned towards Lucy. “We’re not kittens, stop doing the whole ‘work together nicely’ thing on us.”

“Kittens?” Frannie asked.

“Cat here has a group of children that she keeps,” Gomorrah said.

Frannie turned towards me. “Keeps how?”

“We’re all from the same orphanage. I’m not about to send them back.”

“Is anyone trying to adopt them now?” Frannie asked.