Chapter 2 -- Only A Small Town
There's nothing green about Green Meadows. There's no meadows, either.
Ha. I know it's in poor taste to laugh at your own jokes, but I'm just so witty sometimes. Besides, it helps with my irritation. I've been walking for hours, the sun beating down mercilessly on my back. I look disapprovingly at my boots, all dusty from the endless road, and not a girl's tongue in sight to clean them...
But soon. This is the final hill to crest before I'm finally at my destination, such as it is.
Green Meadows is just a town, though even that term feels overly generous for the kind of ramshackle agglomeration of makeshift buildings that cling desperately to the barren earth here. I think of it more as a hole, really. A place dug out from the ground, for fleeing animals to hide in, to find safety in. Perhaps a colony of termites, burrowing into dead wood.
I pause for a moment, surveying the town from my vantage point. It's not much to look at - a haphazard sprawl of structures that seem to have been cobbled together from whatever materials were at hand. Corrugated metal, splintered wood, even the occasional tarp fluttering in the hot breeze. A far cry from the cities, and even they haven't fully recovered yet. For every new sleek building the New Order builds up, there's two apartment buildings that are still bombed out. But even that looks like a five-star hotel, compared to this shithole.
But then, that's rather the point, isn't it? This isn't a place for the loyal citizens of the regime. This is a hideout, a bolt-hole, a last refuge for the desperate and the hunted. For rebels and dissidents.
For my prey.
The only reason the New Order maintains the fiction that it doesn't know about this place's existence is that it allows them to keep a close eye on potential dissidents, in a place they already know to look at. Or so the warden told me once. I think it's equally likely that he's requested the troops to reduce the place a while ago, and his superiors denied his request.
Not even the most powerful of men can be everywhere all at once.
I study the place further. The town is south of me, and it's built flush along a modest river that runs to the east. There's some vegetation growing on that side, but the western side is barren.
I adjust the pack on my shoulders and start down the hill, my boots kicking up small clouds of dust with each step. I let my mind wander, considering my approach.
I could try to sneak in, of course. Scout out the town's perimeter, find out the nearest patch of woodland and hide until darkness falls. But that doesn't feel like the soundest approach for a place like this, where everyone's always looking over their shoulder. If I set off any alarms, my quarry would scatter like roaches when the light is switched on.
No, better to walk in bold as brass. Just another weary traveler seeking shelter, or perhaps something as simple as a drink at the local bar. After all...
I'm just a woman in need for protection, aren't I?
My feet ache inside my boots, and I wipe away sweat from my forehead with the back of my hand. I wish I had a vehicle, and that's not something I say often. Yes, the mobility is nice, and you can carry more women back in a single trip. But vehicles also make your approaches more predictable, easier to track.
Then again, I'm not going in stealthy, and I'm just supposed to find the cell and let the men do the rest, so maybe I really should have asked the warden for a truck, or something.
But even with his permission, if I'd gone to the re-education center's motor pool and tried to requisition a vehicle, the guards there would surely have taken their... payment... upfront. Motor pool guards are infamous. They might have taken my food -- their rations are notoriously shit -- or they might have bent me over the hood of a car and taken turns with me. Likely both.
On second thought, I'm better off walking.
When I reach the bottom of the hill, a battered wooden sign welcomes me to Green Meadows. It lends a quaint, small-town charm to a place that is anything but. Or it would, if not for the peculiar coat of arms chosen to represent the town.
It's a crude spray-canned depiction of a woman in a rebel's outfit and combat boots, one fist raised in the air with a broken chain dangling from the wrist. She's stepping on the neck of a man in the uniform of the re-education centers. The letters below, in a flowing script, read:
"FREEDOM FOR ALL WOMEN."
How cute.
I have to admit, there's a certain dumb audacity to it that I can't help but admire, even as it makes me want to roll my eyes. It's like a chihuahua yapping at a doberman - you have to give it points for sheer gumption, even if it's ultimately futile.
I step closer, examining the details. The lines are rough and uneven, clearly done in haste, but there's an undeniable energy to the image. The rebel woman's eyes blaze with righteous fury, her teeth bared in a snarl of defiance. The guard beneath her boot looks suitably cowed.
It's a powerful image, for sure. Defiance in the face of overwhelming odds. A promise of retribution, of tables turned and oppressors brought low.
Too bad it's complete bullshit. Too bad spray cans don't win wars.
I've seen what little is left of the women that exit the re-education centers, and some day, the author of this coat of arms will get to find out first-hand.
As I creep closer and closer to Green Meadows, I run into an absolutely adorable sight. They have makeshift city walls! Sure, they're made of corrugated metal and they don't look too firmly planted in the ground either, but anything that helps you sleep better at night, I guess.
Every metal panel seems to bear some manner of graffiti or other, and most of it seems to be slogans. "The Future Is Female," and "The Day Of Reckoning Is Coming," and other similarly generic statements.
But one catches my eye. It says, in full caps, "COLLABORATORS, YOUR TIME WILL COME AS WELL."
How curious. I wonder if it's coincidence, or if rumour is already spreading that there's a woman hunting after her own kind. I trace the edges of the letters with my fingers, feeling the texture of the paint. The colors are still vibrant, the lines crisp and clean. It hasn't yet started to crack or peel.
This wasn't done months ago and then forgotten. It's recent.
Well. Good to know I have a fan!
I shake my head and tear my gaze away from the graffiti. Enough woolgathering. I have a job to do.
I stride past what seems to be a northern gate - in reality simply a gap through the metal wall, though it is guarded by two armed women -- and into the town. I'm doing my best to look wary but not too wary. I've dressed for the part - sturdy boots, practical pants, a simple shirt, a light coat to keep off the dust, a hat to shield my head from the sun.
I'm carrying a huge backpack, yes, but to an untrained eye it could simply be because I'm carrying my home on my back, rather than the tools of my trade. Nothing too flashy or attention-grabbing. I want to blend in, to look like just another drifter passing through.
The main street, if you can call it that, is little more than a dusty track flanked by ramshackle buildings. A bakery with empty display cases, a hardware store boasting a perpetual going-out-of-business sale, a barbershop with a handwritten note in the window: "Closed for the Foreseeable Future." Pretty much what you'd expect from a town like this.
More interesting to me is the configuration of twisty alleys created by the decentralized and haphazard nature of the town. My internal radar is sweeping back and forth in a methodical fashion, taking note of every landmark, every window, every narrowing alley and impassable dead end, committing the place's geography to memory.
A quick circuit of the town's periphery reveals that there's no gate on the eastern side, where the town is flanked by the river. Besides the gap I used myself, there's two more guarded points of exit: one is to the south, still on the main dirt road, and the other is to the west. Good to know.
There's an art to inconspicuous observation. To taking in all your surroundings without tipping off other people that that's what you're doing. To not seem like someone who's overly interested in the area, someone who might be trying to sabotage you or spy on you. To not seem like a threat.
Not many people seem to be around right now. There's a woman hurrying along with groceries, and a man with hollow eyes dragging a heavy black plastic bag behind him on the ground. An old bandstand sits derelict in the middle of what must have once been a small public park.
And there,nestled between a consignment shop and a pharmacy, is my destination. The neon sign buzzes and sputters, fighting a losing battle with the afternoon sunlight. It proclaims the establishment to be "Rudy's."
A bar. A dive, really, seedy and run down, the kind of place whose seedy charm comes from a long history of disreputable clientele.
Perfect.
I step inside, taking off my hat and coat and hanging both on the coat rack near the door. The patrons inside glance up at me, briefly, but the place is half full, and to them, I'm just another customer walking in.
I take in the scene. It's a claustrophobic cave of a place, with low ceilings and poorly spaced beams that created a warren of semi-enclosed drinking nooks. The mismatched tables and chairs must have probably been salvaged from wherever the owner could find some, or maybe stolen.
I move towards the bar, the wooden floorboards groaning in protest under my boots. A large man with a wrinkly face and walrus-like mustache -- presumably the eponymous Rudy -- stands behind the bar, polishing a glass with the sort of listless attention that suggests a state of perpetual tedium.
Rudy ambles over when he spots me, setting the glass down and wiping his hands on a dirty rag. "What'll it be?"
"Beer. Whatever's on tap."
He grunts, then turned to fiddle with a keg hidden behind the bar. I use the moment to survey the room again. Most of the patrons present are male, a typical mix of blue-collar types: one older man in a flannel shirt is drinking together with a guy in a leather jacket and a trucker cap. A pair of young men who looked like millworkers or roughnecks. A few women also dot the crowd, all wearing the same tight-lipped expressions.
Two women in particular catch my eye. They're huddled together sullenly around a table near the back wall. A shadowy corner of the bar to pick... mmh.
Rudy slides a tall glass of amber liquid in front of me. I produce a few crumpled bills from my pocket and make for a table.
