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Martin started the day on an up note. A lot more women had awakened. Unfortunately, Jean and Bridget were not among them. Having more data meant that they could make more educated guesses. Angus was crunching numbers trying to forecast when the rest would wake. Ruth had waked during the night and was resting at home with Kyle. Nixie had waked at about the same time. Ted had sent his kids running with the news. Martin was glad to see his friends getting back to normal. And part of him was relieved that Nick and Wisp weren’t here to be disappointed.
No one had seen any obvious side effects. Tillie was back to her old self. Eunice and Mary seemed fine. He hoped that it was simply an odd sleeping flu that wouldn’t surprise them with anything peculiar surfacing further down the line. There were the silver gray kittens and puppies to consider. And the gray swirled egg shells. There was a rumor that the new chicks were fledging out in gray. But he’d leave that mystery up to the experts. There wasn’t anything he could do about it.
Tall Joe arrived with an empty mug in hand for the morning’s update. Martin poured coffee for both of them. There were muffins, too.
“Are these Mary’s?” Tall Joe asked as he took a muffin.
“Not sure.”
“Yup,” Tall Joe said after a bite. “It’s so good to have her back.”
“We’ve gotten spoiled.”
Tall Joe grinned as he chewed. “I can still live off hardtack and filtered water if I have to. But...”
“We don’t have to,” Martin finished his sentence. “At least not right now.” He gestured for Tall Joe to sit at the small meeting table. “What’s the latest?”
“We had a couple drunk and disorderlies last night. They’re still sleeping it off in the jail. I’ve got a dozen more men back on duty because their women woke up. Other than that it’s been quiet.”
Toby arrived looking drawn. His red hair was slicked back, and his green eyes were deeply shadowed.
“Problem?” Martin asked.
“No. I just wanted to stop in, let you know we heard from Wisp last night. He radioed in pretty late. He said there’s two raiders down, and a bunch of new folks might be coming in today. But one of the raiders got away, and he wasn’t sure which way he was headed. I’ve got extra patrols out.”
“Sounds good. Where are you headed now?” Martin asked.
“Bed. Why?”
“That’s where I was going to send you,” Martin said with a chuckle. “Ya look like hell.”
“Yeah. I pulled a double. We had an incursion, but it turned out to be a troop of wild boar.” Toby’s mouth stretched in a weary smile.
“Is there a barbecue in our future?” Tall Joe asked eagerly.
“I think so. We took out the big male, and the rest went running. Told the Hunters. Apparently a bunch of wild boars are called a sounder.” He shrugged. “Never heard of it, but I’ve never had to deal with them before. Anyway, they’re going to keep an eye on the boars. But I’ve got two men with injuries, and the post garden’s been all torn up.”
“Do you need men?” Martin asked.
“No, we’re almost back to normal. Durham sent me an extra shift, so we’re good.”
“Go sleep,” Martin said in way of dismissal. Toby gave him a casual salute before leaving.
“Do you want to talk to Maisey?” Tall Joe asked as he refilled his mug.
“Is she going to be a problem?”
“I don’t think so. She seems to trust Bug, and he’s happy as a clam at high tide over at the clinic.”
“Yeah, sure. Is she in the transition center?” Martin stood up to signal the end of the meeting. There wasn’t anything he could do about the things that bothered him the most. Leaving problems in other people’s hands was not his strong point, but he needed to learn to trust them. All of the people under him were very capable.
“Yup,” Tall Joe said. He gulped down the last of his coffee.
Young Joe wasn’t due in for his briefing for a couple hours. And with Nick and Wisp bringing new folks in sometime today, Martin wanted to get the final interview with Maisey out of the way. Once they’d been captured, her band had fallen apart. There hadn’t been any cohesiveness to them. Maisey might have been more of a mother figure than a true leader. If that was true, it would make things a lot easier. The last thing they needed right now was someone jostling Tillie or even Angus for control over the Alliance.
He walked down to the transition house noting the mood on the street. People were less tense. There were a few women out shopping. Mary propped open the door to her bakery and waved at him. She was red-faced and sweaty from the ovens. He waved back with a tight feeling in his chest. Their little community was a lot more fragile than anyone wanted to believe.
At the Transition Center, Ted was still dealing with infants and toddlers, but he had acquired a lot of helpers. Despite the chaos in the lobby, Ted seemed happy.
“You doing okay?” Martin asked
“My Nixie is awake,” he said simply. “She’s fine, and she’s back here with me. We’re going to get married very soon.”
“Congrats. I’m here to see Maisey.”
“She’s out on the back patio,” Ted said as he was called away for a minor crisis involving the proper owner of a small, blue blanket.
Martin went through the dining room. A row of French doors opened out on to a sunny, raised porch that looked over a long lawn. Maisey was sitting in the shade, staring out at the view.
“Maisey?”
She startled at his voice as if lost in thought. “You’ve come to interrogate me.”
Martin pulled over a chair to sit opposite her. “I just wanted to check in on you. Are you settling in okay? Need anything?”
Her face said she didn’t believe him.
He changed tack. If she expected an interrogation, he might as well just get the hard questions out first. “How’d you end up with Rusty?”
“Same way I ended up with any of them,” she answered with a rueful expression. “They saw our fire or smelled our food and came out of woods for a handout.” She shook her head. “I could barely keep a handle on half of them. I knew as soon as I ran out of food that they’d probably kill me and take whatever they wanted.”
“It’s rough out there,” Martin said gently.
Maisey snorted. “Like you’d know?” She gave him an angry look. “You people with your cozy little town, and your warehouses full of food. Where have you been while people like us were starving?”
Heat rushed up from Martin’s chest into his head. For a second, everything went gray as his brain hit overload. He had to drag a hot breath into his lungs before he could speak without screaming at her. “We built this place from nothing, with just a dream and a hope from Angus. We built the farms after a wildfire burned us out. Where have we been?” he growled, his voice getting deeper and softer. “I patrolled the riots. I helped stack the bodies so high you couldn’t see over them. I lost men to the flu, to berserkers, and the ones that just gave up and lay down next to their dead kids. We were all out there. And we saw what a hell it was turning into, so we came here to make something good. Because we all have that pain. We all lost everything. And if we don’t keep working toward the good, we might as well just lay down in the street and let the bastards burn the world down.” Martin was breathing hard, and his throat was tight. He was still having nightmares from Zero Year. This was not a good time to bring up all those hard memories.
“I’m sorry.” There was a hitch in her voice that said more than words.
He looked at her, seeing a reflection of his pain in her eyes. “Me too,” he mumbled. Now, he was embarrassed. He was short on sleep and shouldn’t have gotten so emotional.
“I feel like I’ve been stuck in a bad dream for too long,” she said softly. “This place seemed too good to be true. It scared me.”
Martin shook his head. “Why would it scare you?”
“How do you do it? Slave labor or drugging people into obedience? I only had a handful of people to oversee, and I could barely get them to walk in the same direction at the same time. To see this level of organization...I can’t imagine how you can do it.”
“That’s Angus,” Martin said with pride. “He knows how to get people excited about working together. It’s because he wants people to do what they’re good at. And he knows how to corral that energy into his projects. He’s amazing.”
Maisey’s eyes had lost some of their hardness. “And what are you good at?” The anger drained out of her face replaced by a hesitant hope. It was the dawning of that light in the eyes of a survivor that kept Martin going.
“Mostly keeping him safe,” he confessed. “I kicked around for a long time with nothing in mind beyond survival. Came here sick and broken. Tillie gave me a bowl of soup. First cooked food that I’d had in ages. Almost broke down and cried.” Martin didn’t want to say that he had cried. And that Tillie had cried with him. It wasn’t something he had ever shared with anyone, and he wasn’t sure why he had told Maisey. But she really did have the most amazing eyes. The way the sun was reflected in her face made her look almost glamorous.
“Like me,” she murmured. “Everything I see here makes me cry. I tried so hard to figure out how to keep us all alive, but I guess I’m not very good at that.”
“What are you good at?” Martin asked gently.
She shook her head. “Not a lot of things.”
“No I mean what did you do before Zero Year?”
“It’s stupid,” she said with a twitch of a shrug.
“Hey, you don’t know until you ask. I’m amazed at what Angus can repurpose.” He gave her an expectant look until she finally spoke.
“I was a chocolatier.”
“Okay, that’s a new one. What does that mean?”
“I designed and created different kinds of chocolates.”
Martin’s mouth watered. “Huh. We’ve got a pastry shop, but we don’t have a candy shop.”
Maisey blinked at him in surprise. “Don’t tell me you have sugar and cocoa supplies.”
“No. But we’ve got sorgum and honey. I can talk to Nick about sourcing some cocoa. It grows in the same places as coffee, right?”
“Yes.”
“I bet you could work with Mary at the bakery until we could get you set up,” Martin said eagerly. For some reason, he felt a strong need to find something to anchor her to High Meadow Town.
“Um.” She shook her head like a dog shedding water. “Wait. People are wandering around out there desperate for food and safety, and you want me to make candy?” Her voice had risen with great indignation.
“Are you trained as a soldier? A cook? Scout?”
“No.”
“We got that covered,” Martin said. “We have trained search and rescue. Doctors. Every train station on the line has a sign telling people that they can come to High Meadow. There are Travelers that go to different communities and spread the word. I’m sorry you didn’t know we were here, but it isn’t a secret.” He waited for his words to sink in. His argument must have won her over.
She gave him a tentative smile. “So where’s this bakery?”