After dinner, which had consisted of the chicken soup Tan had made once he’d recovered from the shock of seeing his brother, they gathered around the kitchen table. The soup had been delicious, and they’d eaten as much as they could, since it wouldn’t hold long. They’d put it in the barn to stay cold, but it wouldn’t last more than a few days.
Tan had stubbornly refused to talk about what had happened. He’d wanted to, at first, but once Austin and Mack had started asking questions, he’d shut down. He didn’t like talking about the past, not even about Calvin. Talking about the bad stuff made him anxious and angry, and talking about the good stuff only made him sad because he couldn’t separate the good memories from the bad ones. Like with his brother. Calvin had been nice to him, but the fact that he’d been an exception made it so hard to think about.
You can’t keep quiet about it forever.
Ah, the voice was back. Great. It might have a point, but he could try.
You can’t stop thinking about it anyway, so why not talk about it?
Right. That was valid, actually. He had been mulling it over in his head all day, so the memories were already there. He could hardly make them worse by talking, right?
“I had six siblings: two older sisters, one older brother, and two younger brothers, twins,” he started. Austin and Mack both turned toward him, and the quiet encouragement on their faces gave Tan the strength to continue.
“Calvin is my older brother by four years. My mom once said that she had a stillborn baby between him and me, but she never wanted to talk about it again, so I don’t know for sure.”
What made him think of that? He hadn’t thought about it in ages. One of those weird things that jumped into his head for no particular reason.
“If I had to describe my childhood and teenage years, I’d say I was tolerated. My parents loved me, I think, but their love was out of duty, out of habit. They weren’t abusive in any way. For the most part, they just ignored me, kind of like an annoying bug you hope will lose interest in you and go away.”
Austin reached for his hand, but Tan shook his head, pulling back his own hand. One touch and he’d break down. He’d learned that sometimes, empathy was the worst thing that could happen to him. Empathy made him want to give in to his feelings, to that sense of drowning under the weight of his past, of his traumas.
“They must have known I was gay since I was a young boy. Hell, I knew when I was nine or so. Even in a household where the word gay was never mentioned, I knew I was different. I also knew that was the reason they didn’t like me as much as my siblings.”
That sounds rather pathetic when you put it like that.
No. Not pathetic. Pathetic assumed he was at fault either for thinking this or for causing them to behave the way they had. In a way he had been because he was gay, but that still wasn’t his fault. He hadn’t chosen to be gay. Unlike what the government and its loyal supporters claimed, you couldn’t choose who you loved or were attracted to. Fuck knew he’d tried.
“Calvin was nice to me. More than anyone else in my family, he made an effort to be kind, to spend time with me. I cried when he left for boot camp because I knew I’d be utterly lonely. I saw him once when he was on leave, and we hung out a lot, and that was it. After he enlisted, I lasted two years, and then I had to leave. My parents would report me at some point, that I was certain of. So I left and haven’t seen them since then.”
“How long has it been?” Mack asked.
“Five years. I was so shocked when I recognized his voice. I wanted to run down and hug him…but I didn’t.”
“Because you couldn’t be sure he wouldn’t report you,” Mack said. Of course, he would understand. He’d been reported by his own parents, sent to camp by his own parents. He knew better than anyone else what cruelty people who were supposed to love you were capable of.
A lonely tear dripped down Tan’s cheek, and he couldn’t be bothered to wipe it away. “Yeah. Or shoot me on sight.”
They sat, the silence slowly changing from heavy and oppressing to lighter. He’d talked about it, and he actually did feel better.
Told you so.
How about that?
“At least I got to hear his voice,” he said, his voice a little hoarse.
Mack nodded. “I don’t know if you’ll ever see him again, but if you don’t, your last memory of him will be of him extending kindness to a stranger. That’s a good memory to have.”
Tan smiled at him. What a sweet thing to say. It was so utterly Mack to be so sensitive and kind. “Thank you, sweetie. That’s a lovely thought.” He breathed out slowly. “I just hope he’ll stay alive. Aren’t they scared the aliens will see them and kill them? Or bots?”
Austin and Mack shared a look, one that Tan didn’t understand, but they looked kind of proud and sad at the same time, so he let it go. As long as they weren’t angry with him, he could live with it. They tended to see things differently than he did anyway.
They sat for a while longer. Tan breathed in deeper, his chest no longer so tight. Then Mack turned on the radio. At first, he hit nothing but static. “Huh. That’s weird,” he said. “That government channel seems to be gone. Let me see if I can find anything else.”
It took him a few minutes of searching, catching garbled broadcasts a few times, but nothing understandable. Finally, he hit a station that was transmitting a crystal clear signal.
“…various reports from all across the world about alien attacks. So far, we have confirmed reports from the following locations: Dubai, United Arab Emirates; Dammam, Saudi Arabia; Doha, Qatar; Vankor, Russia. Several towns in Alberta, Canada. Several places in the CUS including Houston, Odessa, and Midlands, as well as along the coast of the Gulf of Mexico, North Dakota, and Wyoming. In the WUS, we have reports from LA and surroundings. The EUS seems to have been spared so far. There are also unconfirmed rumors about Venezuela and other South-American countries. With the information we have, we feel confident to conclude they’ve targeted oil fields. Reports state they’ve increased oil production everywhere, and large alien aircraft have been detected landing and taking on supplies of what we assume is oil.”
They’d called it. Tan couldn’t believe they’d been right. It was all about oil. It shocked him, and at the same time it didn’t. So many wars had been fought over oil, over money, over power. This was just the next step.
“Listen, we’re not an official government channel. I’m just a guy broadcasting this from my basement with the help of a few friends. We’ve made contact with other radio pirates across the world, and together, we’re trying to build a global network to share all the information we have. What we know is this. The EMPs they used knocked out power almost everywhere in the northern hemisphere. Practically the whole western world is without electricity. There’s a pattern of attacking areas that have an oil reserve, and they’re focusing on supermarkets, gas stations, and anywhere else that sells food. They’re starving us. And from what we can tell, it’s working—at least in the areas that are under their control. Contagious diseases are breaking out in major cities all over the western world. We don’t know what to advise you other than to hunker down if you’re somewhere safe and have food, and avoid contact with other people as much as possible. That’s it for now. We gotta keep it short to spare our power ‘cause we’re running this with an emergency solar panel. Stay safe, folks. It’s deadly out there.”
From one second to the next, the signal turned into static, and Mack switched off the radio. Austin drew a shaky hand through his hair, puffing out a long breath. “I don’t know what to say. It’s everything we feared it would be, but to hear it confirmed…”
“Yeah,” Mack said, who looked gobsmacked as well. “It’s…yeah.”
Tan closed his eyes. He couldn’t imagine what the situation outside was like. Outside their safe little bubble here. Outside Wyoming. Outside the CUS. People were sick, hungry, dying. He swallowed, then opened his eyes again. “I think you were smart to split up all our food and hide it.”
They’d spent most of the day divvying up the food into eight different groups, then finding good places to hide them. Mack had insisted they’d do the same with some of the other supplies they had. Weapons. Blankets. Flashlights. The backpack and tent they still had. Whatever could come in handy, according to Mack—and Tan and Austin had blindly followed his advice.
Mack nodded. “I’m glad we decided to stay.”
“We won’t be safe anywhere,” Austin said, his voice breaking. “Until they’ve taken all our oil, they’re not gonna let us be. All we can hope for is that once they got what they came for, they’ll leave and never come back.”
“Earth will never be the same again. How will we function without oil? We’d literally go back in time centuries in terms of technology,” Mack said.
Tan couldn’t even imagine. He wasn’t the sharpest tool in the shed when it came to shit like that. Whatever. But he wasn’t dumb or anything. He’d just had limited interests and limited opportunities. But even he knew that a lot of things were made from oil or needed oil to work. Cars. Planes. Plastic. And he was probably forgetting some pretty crucial stuff. Everything would change, and that was if they would survive in the first place, which, frankly, was still far from certain. It felt like being imprisoned all over again, but this time by fear of what could happen.
“D-do we need to talk about this now?” he asked. “Like, is it urgent?”
Austin’s look softened. “It’s been a rough day.”
Tan nodded. “Can we go to bed? Please?”
Austin and Mack both responded with nods of their own, and Tan breathed out with relief.
They were quiet as they undressed, brushed their teeth, and crawled into bed. Tan needed his men something fierce, his mind still spinning with everything. His brother and his parents and what had happened in the camp, and for some reason, that made him think of Adam and if he was still alive, and would they survive this winter?
Adam? Why the hell are you spending any energy on that worthless piece of shit?
His own thoughts startled him. Why had he been thinking about him? The camp, that’s why. He’d been thinking about the camp and everything there, and… No, he had enough to worry about. He wasn’t gonna drag the past into it as well. His head hurt with it all, or maybe it was his heart.
He curled up against Mack, needing his sweetness, his tenderness. He could’ve cried with relief when Mack wrapped his arms around Tan, allowing him to crawl as close to him as he could. Austin snuggled in behind him, and Tan’s mind quieted a bit. He raised his head and kissed Mack.
It started chaste, more like a tender meeting of lips, but this time, it was Mack who took him in deeper. It was Mack who rolled onto his back and pulled Tan on top of him. And when Tan whimpered a little because his neck burned with the awkward angle, it was Mack who flipped them over, lying on top of him.
Surrender had never been this sweet.