Trayrock, A few days after the storm
“I don’t think that you understand,” the woman was furious, tapping the toe of her high heel on the sidewalk in a rapid staccato. “I have a very important appointment in Rideten. It has taken six months to get this appointment and I get charged whether I attend or not.”
“Tiff,” her husband murmured, his hand on her elbow and demeanour pleading. “It’s for public safety.”
“They can’t keep us prisoner here,” Tiff shook her elbow free of his grip in order to prod her finger into the chest of the NES officer. “It’s been a week already and there’s still no power, no internet, and the phone connections are in and out in and out… I can’t even call my daughter in Havermouth, and it’s just a short drive from here! Not that I can drive to see her, because all the roads are blocked, either by your men or the flood, and I want to know what you’re doing about it!”
Lyric adjusted her grip on the cardboard box of supplies she was carrying to her car. The local shops were accepting cash payments, although their prices had become exorbitant. Lyric had restocked on a few luxuries that would extend the basics that she grew for herself, and some not-so-luxury items that she suspected would soon become scarce.
She paused by her Ute, torn between her well-developed survival instincts that recommended keeping her head down and getting out of town quickly, and her natural curiosity that was held enthralled by the developing drama.
Arthur would have advice for the unwise Tiff, Lyric thought as she slid the box onto the passenger seat. When a bunch of men in uniform and carrying weapons took control of a place, there were certain things that a person should do if that person wanted to live a long and happy life, and confronting one of the men on the street wasn’t one of those things.
“Ma’am, do not poke at me,” the NES agent’s lip curled in a sneer. “The roads are not safe.”
“How, precisely, are they not safe?” Tiff demanded, hands on hips, undaunted.
“There are powerlines and tree branches down.”
“Isn’t that your job?” She replied sharp as a whip. “To get them off the roads?”
“Tiff,” Vince’s eyes went to where the other townspeople were beginning to slow and gather, and further down the road where the scene had drawn the attention of two other NES officers. “This is not…”
Wise, Lyric finished for the unfortunate Vince. It was not wise, because she was almost entirely sure that the men walking around Trayrock in black uniforms were not NES officers. Who they were, she did not know for sure, but she had paid attention to Arthur’s many tales, and she knew that armed men who moved into a community and took control, suppressing access to the outside world, were not a good sign of things to come.
It was because of Arthur’s experiences that his cottage was self-reliant and off-grid. Unlike most of Trayrock, she had power, hot water, and a battery-operated radio – and what was playing out on the radio waves was so incredible that she wasn’t entirely sure it wasn’t a hoax.
Not that it wasn’t all believable, she amended. She believed that there was a contaminant in the water. Both because Arthur had been investigating the dam upstream for years for negligence, and because Arthur had always said that the best way to control a population was to control the water supply. Humans could not survive without it after all.
Which was why the cottage relied on rainwater despite its proximity to the river.
She watched Vince succeed in persuading Tiff away from the NES officer as his two friends reached them. The three black-clad men followed the couple to their car with narrowed eyes and one made a note of their registration.
“Time to go,” Lyric told herself. She didn’t think that Arthur’s Ute was registered, nor that the plates on it went with the car, but she didn’t want anyone to look too closely at it, or at her. She slid into the driver’s seat and started the engine as discretely as possible before reversing out.
Her passage was slow, many of the streets blocked by the occupying militia, and those that were not, crammed with other cars. The black-clad men were everywhere, trying to disperse gatherings of people, close the few shops that were open, and get everyone to return to their houses.
“You want to control a populace, Lyric,” Arthur would say. “You start by controlling their connection to the rest of the world. Cut them off and isolate them. Then from each other, so they can’t organize against you. Make them scared and alone, and you have them.”
There was an irony there somewhere, Lyric thought dryly as she approached the checkpoint that would release her out of Trayrock’s center and allow her to head for home. Scared and alone was precisely what Lyric was.
She wound down her window as a black-clad man approached.
“Where are you off to?” He asked peering within the cab, his eyes on the cardboard box.
“Home,” she told him. “I only came in for supplies, now that the storm has passed, and I thought the shops would be open. I’m fairly regional, and with no phones or internet, I didn’t know the NES were here, or that we weren’t meant to be out and about.” Pretend like she was being good and heading home because that was what they wanted, she encouraged herself whilst looking as innocent as she could. “I’m very sorry.”