Long Lines Volume One: Chapters 1 - 3

Silver Spring

Roads are gone. There are fields that sprouted up through the asphalt then swallowed the jagged chunks whole again; nature's very efficient way of reclaiming things. This made room for thorny brush and heartier descendants of defiant, prickly flowers that once thrived at the sides of highways. But, there are no more roads to speak of, or many vehicles to use them. The flats, as River knows them, are places where new outcasts get killed fast; picked off by those who prey on anyone dumb enough to travel out in the open carrying one of those boxes full of donated junk they give outcasts prior to banishment.

Incarceration, and justice as was known in the 20th century, are long-abandoned concepts. Clan living means you fall in line, or you find somewhere else to fall, which River knew all too well. He took note of moss growth on the slippery rocks ahead of him, a good sign under very thick leaf canopy he liked to travel under that he was heading North as he'd intended. River was staying about a hundred meters to the left of what was left of an old interstate, heading towards a free trade area where he could get medicine and supplies.

Much earlier that morning, he crossed the river across the tracks that were built on top of what was once a highway known as 301; one of the few that wasn't blown intentionally or by the bombs. Richmond was behind him, in a number of ways.

The map he was following still had the old lettering on it, which showed SILVER SPRING just below his position, but what River was the most concerned about was the areas marked in red, because those were areas where other people had marked his map with danger for him — in exchange for information he had. Most things are transactional, and predictable, and that's how people liked it. River had at least met most of the other chronic outcasts he was going to run into out here; though he much preferred to avoid people entirely; he would seek to trade with people he knew weren't too violent to deal with or so desperate that they'd try to steal from him. River was just under 188cm tall (6'2 by the old way), about 95 kilos, and rather muscular from constant labor and travel on foot. He wasn't visibly easy to pick a fight with, but that didn't stop many from trying.

The red areas on the map were a small collection of terrible things to avoid: some of them represented local radio beacons warning people of kill-on-sight no trespassing, some were sightings of a mutated horseshoe crab known to locals as "cracks", along with locations of known pirate gang turf. Because he didn't talk very much to anyone, River traded with many, and his maps were always very valuable. He knew this, and had to be careful whom he allowed to see them; someone needing to survive within 300 kilometers would kill for the information he kept, updated at a price.

As River came to the dry part of the creek he'd been loosely orbiting while he made sure his path was confusing and random, he felt the air change as he neared the edge of the canopy and saw overcast in the distance as he looked up. He reasoned that he was in one of the environmental runoff embankments that are at the lower-grade side of the old major interstate ramps; he was also at the point where turning back, or at least not going forward, was still an option. Either prospect was serious enough to pause and think about, and he had to recalibrate his strategy and bearings with just over two hours of light left.

It didn't take long to find an overhang that offered some shelter from the wind as well as partial concealment of the light from a small camp fire. River unpacked the bottom compartment of his bag, arranged a small beat-up pot on the rock next to a pile of sticks in front of a small hole he'd dug to conceal and vent the fire underground. River kicked it off with a small plasma torch and emptied some water from a rubber bladder he had in his bag into the pot, along with a soup cube he had stored in some wax paper. When the broth was steaming, he took it off the fire and sipped it while he ate a piece of flatbread with dried fruits.

He noticed his power cell was getting lower than he usually allowed it to get. Somehow, he'd need to find a way to repair or replace his array before he could charge it again, or he had to find someone with a working array who would let him use it in exchange for something. River knew you never took kindness outside of your own clan, and offering it was seen as trapping, so being caught without something to trade was like being caught dead. You never use the last of something until you know where you're going to get more, because you may need it in order to get more. Sometimes you just have to pay for being introduced to the person who can get you what you need. River put the rest of his dried fruit back in his bag and checked on his cannabis pouch: still a few days' worth, good.

He put some cannabis into his doser and set it on a 50 mcg per actuation level. One bar of flux left in the battery; if he didn't find a way to charge his electronic stuff soon, he was going to be in pain. He leaned back on his pack and pulled the warm vapor into his lungs as he felt the muscles in his legs relax and the throbbing in his feet subside for the first time that day.

There's a functioning port in Baltimore that is kept open by a very precarious but necessary arrangement between the city gangs and the gangs that control the ships. No one goes to the port bartering on their own behalf; the port is for the delivery end of deals and heavily guarded. You don't get in if you're not known, or without an appointment.

And if you're an outcast like River going there to link up with a new clan hoping to work the docks, he could become cargo himself if they end up not taking him. Slavery isn't recognized (as in legal ownership of another) or even condoned in most territories, but that doesn't prevent it from happening.

River received a labor hand appointment slot from someone he helped about a hundred miles south in what used to be Virginia; someone who didn't understand the mountain very well and found himself pinned at the bottom of a rock slide. His leg, which had been crushed right above the ankle, rendered him unable to move in the rare moments that he could stop screaming from the pain long enough to try again. River found the man making a plus sign with his arms, indicating he would give something if help was rendered. River gave him medicine to dull the pain so he wouldn't attract anyone else with the screaming, and medicine to fight off the infection that was surely coming. He then strapped the man to his back and climbed out of the ravine.

People are obligated by the pact of life to render aid regardless of the other person's ability or even willingness to give something, but you catch more flies with honey, River's father used to day, despite overwhelming evidence of shit being a better fly bait.

After about a day, the man's fever broke and delirium subsided, and he was able to tell River about his brother getting in good at the docks and being asked to raise his own crew. His brother vouched hard for him and sent for him to come, and that's where he was headed when he wasn't paying attention to what was under his feet. The man looked beyond solemn, he looked broken. While he had healed and didn't get a field amputation. he was left completely disabled with survival skills that all depended on two working legs.

"I can't go to the docks. I can't let my brother down like that. He vouched hard; people spent money on his word because they trust him, and now look at me. What am I gonna deliver?" he asked, rhetorically, enunciating every word with a strike to his non-working ankle with his walking stick, slobbering in visceral disgust of what he was now. River knew at the core, the man was right, and he didn't need to hear the man say another word to know exactly what his thoughts were:

1. He couldn't make the trip forward; he would be easy pickings. To the unscrupulous who target the vulnerable to the fellow-disabled who pick targets where they might have a shot in hell.

2. Even if he made the trip, showing up unable to work the docks or even last in a brawl throws a very bad light on his brother, most likely risking both of their safety in a very short amount of time.

As if he could almost tell that River had his ticket figured out pretty well, he simply said "Look I can't show up there like this; I just can't do that to him. You did me a solid, kid, so why don't you just take the voucher? Give this to my brother and tell him you're my proxy; just tell him what happened and make sure he knows I did the right thing by him. He'll take care of you kid I promise he's solid with the pact."

River sighed, loudly enough that the man would hear him. He knew his answer right away but held his silence for a moment to give the man the respect of consideration. "I'll do my best to take care of him, on the pact. Take this sack, it has half the rations from the cache we stumbled on when we were keeping you concealed.

"On the pact." The man said, indicating that things had been conducted fairly and as a way of commending River for staying steadfast to common law. River nodded, "What will you do?" he asked, not wanting to leave a disabled man, however well-armed and trained, to wander aimlessly, on the pact. "Right back the way I came," he said, "three hours even with this limp. I'll be fine kid, take off." "On the pact." River said as he left the man. Not many people said that anymore, the man was a member of his father's idealist generation. If you get too over-the-top calling the pact, depending on the company you're with, you might be shushed.

River left the man with enough rations to last him until he could reach a mercy town a few days west, but heard a shot echo through the valley about two miles out from leaving him. Maybe the man shot a coy dog; maybe he shot himself.

River drifted back to the present when he heard the low-key beep his atomizer makes when it dispenses the final puff and shuts off. He studied the map as he eyed the terrain and how it met the picturesque sunset lighting up the foothills he planned to skirt tomorrow to avoid the clearing.

The main path to Baltimore had degraded into a deadly mess. When River was younger, he followed any of the old roads that ended in "95" north or south, — even the ones that went in circles — and eventually got to Baltimore or DC. Now the transient gangs, the ones who claim the roads themselves, control the 95s.

The only direct way through means dealing with gangs, roundabout ways mean dealing with wetlands and the cracks. River had a different idea, he was going to go as far north as the old Army base, cut through a series of seasonal waterways that were mostly dry this time of year, and then approach the city from the East.

River was going to follow the very dry bank where his father found him and claimed him as his own, except it wasn't dry back then. That's how he got his name, River — his father named him after where he'd found him. And, he knew this area very well.

The gangs weren't so bad until the cracks started to force people to follow the drier routes, which bottleneck at the south of the city. When it was easy to go through the wetlands, nothing was special about the roads. River went to sleep thinking about the time he woke up with a crack eating a rabbit half a meter from his face.

Cracks look like their suspected ancestor, the horseshoe crab, except that cracks have a shell that is open in the front, exposing shrimp-like barbed feelers, claws, and many sets of razor-sharp piranha-like teeth lining a throat located at the crux of its pincers. It has longer legs, like a small snow crab, and is very adept on land. They can't last out of the water more than a few hours so their range is limited, but they're intelligent and adapting.

No one knows for certain when they started appearing, or how they happened. Most people believe they were the result of experiments happening at Back River treatment plant near Baltimore, where it was hoped different kinds of scavengers could be made to have a more voracious appetite for plastics in a last-ditch effort to save the waters.

Cracks, as they have come to be called by mid-Atlantic natives, came on quickly over the last decade, with the longer legs being the most recent mutation.

Feeling restless still, River rummaged in the top half of his pack until he found his small low-power radio receiver. It also had its own tiny array, just large enough to charge its tiny low-power cell, but it always worked and even offered some light if there was no other option. He flipped through the pre-programmed settings and listened, for a while, to the white noise between them.

As a small boy, River pretended to sleep while watching the faint glow of the radio panel land on his father's face as he sat with headphones in the dark of their small 12x12 shelter in the north; the one that burned down the one and only night they'd ever come to blows. He would watch his father's expressions as he listened to try and get some idea of how the next day was going to be, or at least how his father's disposition might be, even though it was almost always kind.

One night, river heard another voice in the room right as he was starting to feel sleep set in; it startled him so badly that he sat up. He figured that his father had taken the headphones out for everyone to hear, but he was fast asleep and they were still plugged in; River could hear static and white noise coming out of them.

That was the first time River heard the voice through the radio static, and he thought about it every time he listened for it to return. But, it wasn't coming back tonight, so he nodded off into a light, dreamless sleep.

Laurel & Gambrills

One of the worst sounds to wake up to, when you're sleeping out in the open in hostile country, is the sound of a dog leash without a dog on it. It could mean a hostile dog was nearby, free to make its own decisions.

River didn't move, instead, he tried his best to listen to the precise echo that the unmistakable steel chain made as it swayed against someone's side as they walked; he needed to know the direction the sound was originating from. In his mind he visualized the mixed-rock and earth walls that made up the small valley he was in, and tried to visualize how the sound would bounce. As best as he could figure, the person was approximately fifty meters to his north, uphill. If there was a dog, he'd definitely hear it clamoring downhill long before it smelled him, thanks to how the wind naturally lulled where he was camped.

The sound grew more distant, and eventually faded out completely. River all-but-silently packed away his things, and any sound he made was covered up by the babbling of the shallow creek below. He ate some cashew nuts and raisins while he thought about what he'd heard earlier -- was it a leash or just someone using a leash for something else? Whether or not he'd have to deal with someone that had a trained animal had a lot of bearing on how he was going to proceed with the day, so knowing this became his immediate and rather urgent goal.

River noticed something off in the Western horizon that looked like one of the old cellular towers, but it caught his eye because it had not only round, saucer-shaped antennas with drum coverings, but also the much, much older horn antennas for microwave traffic, still intact. He knew that he was close to an old military installation, but he didn't realize just how close he'd ended up in the dark.

Right before him was one of the same kinds of towers that his father used to get extremely excited about seeing, because they could connect to people looking at the other ocean on the other side of the country. They even lived in the shelter under one very much like it for a while.

Back when everything first started to collapse, military units seized and guarded a lot of civil infrastructure to keep it from being destroyed in riots, or from being extorted by gangs. After the collapse, this network was loosely maintained and taken over mostly by local radio operators previously recruited by the military who moved their families to the safety of the shelter compounds when, not long after, even the military mostly fell apart. Many of the clans got started from homesteads built around sites like these, with flux and large, plowed, fenced-in areas.

River's Grandfather was one of the people who helped everything stay together when it happened, at least as much as was possible back then. They were called hams, or operators, and they knew how to make antennas and fix radios. When everything went to shit, they were the only ones who could talk to anyone else, or get information in and out. From then on, radio self-reliance was something every kid just learned, like River. But not many kids had a father who knew as much as River's; his dad learned from his grandfather, who knew everything there was to know about radio.

River knew that it probably was a dog, and that he was definitely at a guarded facility. What he didn't know, and needed to find out, was just how guarded it was, why, and if he could find an opportunity to slip inside to get access to the equipment and supplies it contained.

He decided to back off to about a half kilometer before where he made camp, just to be sure his presence wouldn't alert any patrols. If it was just a local clan using the building, he could probably talk his way in there to at least see what might still work. If it was one of the federated gangs, then they were probably fully aware of the value of the place and operated more military-like about guarding assets.

From what he could tell using his small receiver, it wasn't running any kind of radio beacons, FM or AM soap box traffic, or anything else River usually picked up. There wasn't anything on the ten-meter, or utility frequencies. This thing was sending microwave traffic only, and was probably just a relay, but it was just guesswork until he could get inside.

He stayed where he could use his monocular to keep an eye on comings and goings without being spotted, and hunkered down to observe while he filled his cannabis diffuser - he could be there for a while and didn't want to cramp up or have his legs start twitching. That he hadn't spotted the earlier source of the chains still bothered him, as he couldn't be sure he wasn't discovered as well. As that thought was slowly melting into focusing his field scope, he heard the panting of a dog and the clang of chains.

"We hope we didn't disturb you earlier; saw you were sleeping up there under the ridge just as I was turning Whista loose on a wild dog that's been bothering my animals."

A cold nose came within a few millimeters from River's face as Whista, a salt-and-pepper-faced German Shepherd, took a seat in front of him on the ground, just as prone as he was, wagging her tail as if she was saying "try moving anything in your body and I get to chew on you like a toy!" River then heard a strange hissing-and-whistling noise from where the voice had just come from, and Whista took a seat a respectful distance away. The voice was now a pair of legs, so River looked up and saw a short, stout man with a wrinkled mahogany face.

"I'm Bingham," said the portly man as he reached his hand down to help River up. "Not like you need help, but not sure how else to shake!" Bingham stepped back by Whista to give River space to get up. "We live in that old radio house; I grow cannabis. I wasn't going to approach you but when we caught wind of your doser, we thought we'd come and say hello! Sorry again if she spooked you, she associates that smell with her getting a treat. All that training so we don't use command words and she's compromised by a little ganja. Nice. What a mess!" he chuckled.

River dusted off the front of his flack jacket, grabbed his pack and put it back on. "Doesn't seem a mess to me" he said, gesturing at how the dog was tracking his every move. He started to feel cautiously optimistic that he might have found a single source to solve most of his immediate needs, but never allowed himself enthusiasm. This guy seemed sincere enough, but caution was a religion for River.

"So, you just use noises to command her? Like the one I heard? What kind of hissing whistle was that?" River asked, not taking his attention away from the muscles he could make out in the dog's body. Bingham paused and actually squinted for a second to answer what River thought would be small talk and said "Well, I don't ever really command her, I just kinda suggest; that dog has a mind of her own. But yeah, that noise is just like the one my grandmother used to use when I was doing something I shouldn't have been. She was from The Philippines and had her own way of chasing after us kids and you could tell what she wanted by the sound she made. So I just used those sounds as a kind of code between me and Whista. That one in particular means stop whatever it is you're doing and look at me, just like it did when I was a kid!" as he laughed, face softened a little, as in thought.

"She found us one day; just wandered onto the property and never left. Obviously had to be someone's dog; maybe they died and she wandered." Bingham reflected while he was scratching Whista on the back of the neck, which she seemed to thoroughly approve of.

"When was the last time you saw someone else?" River asked. Bingham held up his hand, five fingers. "Five years?" River led, and Bingham nodded yes. River was more optimistic now about his plan to sidestep the problematic corridors; if Bingham was telling the truth. "Would you be interested in some trade for cannabis, Bingham?" he asked, with as much interest as he could train in his voice.

"Can you deal with that dog pack I keep losing animals to? I've got half a kilo dried I can offer. Also: call me Bing!" Bingham replied. River nodded, tilted his head in the direction of the tower structure and said "meet you there when I'm done, Bing?" Bingham nodded and walked off in the direction of the tower compound. River saw Bingham talking on a two-way radio while walking back, indicating what he'd suspected all along: there's more than just Bing.

River pulled the .9mm semi-automatic pistol he carried from the holster on his right leg and let the magazine fall out of the bottom well. From the back, he could tell that he had 17 shots, and one was in the chamber. His side weapon was double-action only and had a very heavy trigger. His weapon was over 125 years old and still looked like it was just made. Springfield Armory was one of the very few gun manufacturers in North America that survived the trade wars, and subsequent steel wars, of the first half of the 21st century. River had his Grandfather's father's custom Hellcat. River's entire generational lineage was made up of foundlings, and he understood his own responsibility to shelter one who can't yet shelter themselves, in the only cycle that still mattered to him.

That wasn't going to be ideal against charging dogs. River took his pack off and pulled the lever-action 1894-style Winchester with plasma rail conversion out of the waxed canvas sleeve on the side. He leaned the rifle on his leg as he kneeled down to the pack to get at the middle compartment and pulled out two small boxes of .44 magnum ammo. He opened one and saw sparkly blue translucent tips and closed them, those were the plasma rounds.

The next package yielded lead tips, which he put in his shirt pocket before putting the rest away. He picked up the rifle and, as he pointed it downward, used his fingers to pull back on the magnetic rail chassis in a way that made it slide off the top of the weapon. He wasn't going to use plasma rounds that used rare-earth magnets to charge, so off came the mag rail to make way for the dot scope.

Plasma rounds were used when you knew you needed to penetrate more than flesh. They're made out of a hyper-conductive resin and embedded with tiny coils that burn while producing a lot of voltage from the magnets on the rail. Plasma rounds were low-grain loads, the velocity happened when the reaction took place after a weak load propelled it past the first magnet. They dirtied the barrel plenty and produced more muzzle flash and smoke, but were worth the extra cleaning and visibility.

Old-school rounds just hurled whatever metal (copper, lead, brass, sometimes even tin or even epoxy) you could pack into a bullet casing with some powder behind them. Ammunition had not been "professionally" made for just over a century; you reloaded your own and traded for what you needed to do it.

River's father knew his way around guns like he knew his way around radios, and loved that River loved them too. River loved the precision in the sequence of sounds that were made when a round was inserted, accepted and advanced as the rifle was loaded. It was, to him, a symphony of selfless cooperation, the kind of symphony human beings just can't create on their own. One chambered, six loaded, ready.

River pulled his hunting knife from its sheath on the left side of his belt where he wore it horizontally so it was always easy to pull and very procedurally cut the soft part of his hand long enough to squeeze out about 25ml of blood, which he smeared all over his ankle. He then smeared some around the tall grasses where he was standing and collapsed downward, extending the "hurt" leg outward, and began moaning as if injured.

As soon as the wind changed, he spotted a bushy tail at the edge of the clearing, and then a few minutes later, another tail. He had their attention, most certainly, but he didn't yet have them convinced. He gave it more effort, letting his voice crack, trying his best to sound as wounded as he could.

Finally, he saw one either blind enough, or curious enough, to come investigate his ruse. Knowing dogs, he knew that he could get the whole pack charging at him if he could get this one to charge at him. He sat up, did his best "scared" impression, and started dragging himself backwards, away from the dog. When it started to follow more intently, he ambled up, and started limping away.

The dog looked at him with a sideways glance, but allowed him to keep ambling away without giving chase, Suddenly, due to not watching where he was going, River tripped over a hole in the ground, and fell face-forward as his ankle stayed in the hole. Now, with his ankle actually injured, the dog started running at him, which, as predicted, triggered the pack.

River sat up, pulled the lever-action off the side of the pack with a snap, and immediately had the red dot on the first dog. No time to sight in. River shot, saw the tree next to the dog explode, recalculated, and started hitting the dogs one by one as they charged.

Two more remained, and he'd just squeezed off the seventh shot. He shifted his weight, rolled back, pulled out the hellcat and started painting the air ahead of the dogs with bullets. They stopped, snarled and walked backwards while River reloaded and ran the second they heard the slide re-home. River got a round in both of them, or at least grazed them, because he heard them both yelp.

From over the hills behind him, River heard the sound of an E-ATV and saw Bing riding it. "Saw you work, good stuff!" he said. "Hop on!" Bing gestured as he lit the joint between his lips. River obliged. They didn't talk on the way back, just smoked. An automatic gate let the pair through the chain-link fence that surrounded the compound, Bing stopped in front of a small barn-like building. "Med stuff is in here; follow me," Bing called out as he gestured river through the door he was opening.

Inside, tables were arranged with precision scales, burlap sacks — this was an active and very established homestead colony; it could have been one of the HAMs who originally moved in with the military and stayed, passing it down a couple generations. Bing gestured at a seat near the closest table and said "sit here while I grab the portable X-ray." River continued looking around while wondering if they might also have some insulin if they had something like a portable X-ray when Bing re-appeared with a portable X-ray that looked more like a giant ferrite choke, but it quickly came to life and displayed his ankle without any fractures, so it was just a sprain.

Bing tossed a small bottle of pills over to River and said "For the inflammation and pain, just take them with food. They contain mild opiates that we grow here and natural ingredients like willow bark. We manufacture all of our own medicine." Visibly surprised, River looked at the man, intently and perplexed, and said "you mean right here?" as he gestured around what looked like a farm processing area.

Bingham laughed gregariously with a honey-bourbon warmth to his voice as he chuckled from the lows of his surprisingly deep voice, as he roared "Well sure the hell not right here; over there in the other buildings. We have a small clean room and the chemistry behind most of what we make is really rather underwhelming to talk about and doesn't require much. We just can't trade produce it." River nodded, understanding that it wasn't an issue about making more, it was the lack of an army to protect them once they set up the apparatus to do it.

The first wave of bombs took out most major hospitals. Medical knowledge and supplies became so universally needed and in short supply that the people themselves sort of socialized access to them, and this system has lasted pretty much unchanged for well over a century. Those who produce medicine trade at low cost and can't refuse a sick person, and for that, they have a much easier time procuring nearly anything that they need. However, because of the social nature, the supply follows the needs, not the wishes of the powerful. Those that can produce "modern" medicines become extremely valuable targets.

"You encountered them near the perimeter where we have dozens of remote cameras; we saw the entire thing," Bingham said as he pointed toward a bank of small security displays. The way you did it was graphite-smooth; I honestly would have been happy if you had just gotten one or two, but the way you used your own blood to bait the whole damn pack? That's stone-cold shit, man. We definitely don't want to be in your debt and feel like you went way beyond our deal so let's see ... what else can you use in in addition to this?" Bing asked, as he handed River a vac-seal case with more than the agreed amount of cannabis inside. "Meds? Ammo? What is that thing a 44 magnum?" Bingham asked pointing at his pack.

River nodded slowly to accept the gesture immediately, but stayed quiet for a moment to think, as he too had to be careful about being overcompensated. Ever since courts dissolved and violence became the ultimate arbiter, trade is now a custom where it's expected that you don't take unearned excess, just like it's expected that you tell the truth. Violation of this, even the slightest, is good enough reason for any bystanders to not care about the other party putting a bullet in your spleen. One must be careful who they trade with because one becomes obligated to their best interests, or faces becoming obligated to them if the deal ends unfairly.

"You're solid to your words," River replied, "I will happily accept a case of 44 Mag if you have it, or lead and a bag of 2400 if you don't. I also have a high-cap flux cell in my pack that really needs charging, but it'll pull down a lot."

"That's easy," Bingham made a hand gesture and the small woman who was with him went out a different door than they came in, presumably to get some of the things he'd asked for. "You can charge your pack in the radio room right at the inverters so we don't pull massive flux over thin wire. You suited for meds?"

"I could use some Insulin; a few vials. I have a hypo," River replied. Bingham's face went from one of gregariousness to one of frustration as he said "I'm sure we can spare that. We don't make it here, we can't do anything with DNA, we just don't have the technology or people that know it, and you can't make human insulin properly without fermenting recombinant bacteria. We can build tanks and harvesters but actually producing the producers is way out of our grasp. So, we manage our diets very strictly to avoid needing it as long as possible, which works well for most of us until around 60. Fortunately for you, we don't have many here at that age right now, so this would have gone bad anyway ..." Bingham meandered as he finally emerged from the refrigerator with a small blister pack of vials.

"Two or three vials would be great; that's all my med cooler can handle. My array died on me; there's no getting parts for that old type anymore. I've got a quarter bar of silver still if you have something that I can carry," Bingham nodded and said "Come and help us get these receivers working again and I'm sure we can work something out."

River limped as Bingham walked patiently beside him over to the radio building. It was well past noon and, according to the very audible growling in his stomach, probably time to eat soon. If Bingham heard the rumbling he didn't acknowledge it; the door to the radio shelter opened as they got closer and a small frame much older man appeared from the blackness inside the building. "Meet Spencer, our listener." Bingham said, as he gestured his arm out toward spencer to pat him on the arm. Spencer preempted any awkward pleasantries by briskly waving hello and barking: "let's get inside before bugs do," as all were ushered inside before any further fuss about him being Spencer could be made.

The door slammed in a way that created a symphony between the contact of the metal on metal and the squealing of the very rusty door opener mechanism, and then everything was black until the dim lights in the equipment cabinets along with the dim desk lamp became enough to see the room.

An old Fairchild dual-trace oscilloscope was the only other light on the far side of the room, on top of a very old metal cart with wheels, and attached to what looked like an RF modulator.

This was one of the original long lines shelters, the ones River had heard about. And if those microwave relay horns were actually still working, he would have contact with thousands, information and intel on his journey. This was the kind of break you asked for late at night trying to sleep while hungry and cold.

Arnold

Despite wanting to touch everything around him, River quickly put his hands in his pockets so they didn't do things without him knowing, as they sometimes did. There are other times, like when there's static and he can hear things, that he might hear something say "PUSH IT" or "TURN IT LEFT" and his hands just do it if he's not careful.

The last thing River wanted to do was give Spencer anxiety over the gear, so he waited for Spencer to show him around before asking too many questions or poking at anything. "Hey, is that an old Fairchild dual-trace with self-calibrate?!" River asked, to break the ice. This was a good way to let Spencer know he knew his way around a radio shack without directly asking about the disaster of a wiring mess in front of them.

Spencer winked, held up his index finger in a "wait a second" motion, and walked over to the cart where the scope was sitting. He pulled down on the front panel of the cart, which worked kind of like a roll-top desk, and looking right back at him was a Tektronix 491 spectrum analyzer, which was capable of identifying microwave signals from the 4Ghz all the way to the 12Ghz range, which was the range in which this almost ancient network operated.

"The EMPs fried all of the 12Ghz stuff, and the solid-state amps, but the 6Ghz stuff still mostly works, and there's 4Ghz equipment in the shelter below," Spencer said, in a direct answer to the questions that were starting to swim through River's head.

The corner stone on the shelter building said 1962, but the age of some of the manuals in the industrial metal desk goes back to 1944. This is one of the very first sites built in the 1960s with all new stuff (back then), but also had the legacy gear because it had to relay for a site much closer to the coast, most likely. What this meant was, even though the modern equipment was fried, the older stuff would probably still work, and could even fall back to the amps from the 40s, if the tubes were still good.

"What's the status of stuff now?" River asked with a sharp brevity in his voice indicating that he felt the gravity of just how fortunate they might be about to become. If they could talk to sites North, River could all but guarantee his trip and trade in information that was way more valuable than his map. But he didn't want his excitement to make him look too eager.

Spencer looked straight ahead as he rattled off a short history of time, at least as far as the radio room was concerned, which took about twenty minutes for him to get through. River listened intently and figured out that he was dealing with someone who really knew what they were doing, but couldn't put a system they'd never once seen functional back into working order. They could hear on lower 6Ghz bands, but not transmit. They hadn't yet tried the 4Ghz bands.

River asked for a notebook, some pencils, a calculator, a ruler and some quiet, to which Spencer replied by gesturing at a second industrial-grey metal desk with a small light and early communications device called an analog telephone on it.

He nodded thanks, and got to work on trying to re-create from memory how things looked in the site where he stayed as a child. He then took images of everything he'd just seen and tried to superimpose them on the configuration he remembered. "Where would the problems hide here?" he thought while he pushed the button for his cannabis apparatus to deliver 75 mcg per actuation, took some slow, deep breaths using it, and began staring at the space in the middle of the room (otherwise known as staring at nothing).

Two hours later, he thrust his feet, which had been crossed and resting on the desk in front of him, loudly to the floor and sharply said "Spencer!" loud enough to wake the man sleeping at the desk facing the wall behind him. Spencer sprung back to consciousness saying "wha, uhh, what?" as he fumbled to fix his glasses on his face. "You weren't just dealing with an upgrade from gen1 to gen2 stuff, you were also dealing with the hacks in place from when they switched from FDM to TDM for multiplexing. Did you think about that?" River asked, wondering if he'd just found a thread that could unravel a sweater, or at least a lot of bad wiring.

"I take it that's not your handiwork," River said, as he pointed to the mess of cabling that was coming out of one equipment rack and going into another one. "I'm pretty sure we're looking at the TDM 'upgrade' right there," as he started to chuckle. The good news is, that digital shit is toast anyway, so there's no need to sort it out. I think our best bet is to fire up the 4Ghz stuff and see if the FDM multiplexer still works. I saw tons of replacement klystron tubes down there, and a tester. My thinking is, we're just doing what other sites 50 or so miles from here are probably trying, so let's see if they're on the 4Ghz bands too?"

"Okay," Spencer said, "but which direction? We've got horns pointed East and West. Left radio bank is West, right is East. The left side has some flux issues, that's why you see the instrument cart over there. That's also the side we can hear on, just not talk."

River nodded: "Then let's swap over the East side to 4Ghz if we know the left side is already talking on 6. We have to pull the amps and multiplexers out. The older ones can still use the upgraded Bell supplies, they're still Western Electric, same flux. We're going to need the spectrum analyzer to make sure we're going out correctly." Both of them went to work pulling rack equipment down and replacing it with older-looking equipment. River went behind to re-connect the wave guide and flux, and checked all of the inline fuses. About two hours went by as they slowly unbundled large cables full of smaller multicolor wires from connection strips and re-connected them on the new (old) terminals. The time came when they'd need a line to test, so River got the old phone off of his desk.

"Okay to throw?" Spencer yelled, as his hand went on a switch that controlled flux to the equipment cabinets. "Throw!" yelled River in return and a humming sound was heard while the smell of burning peanuts started to make itself known. "That's just the old asbestos and bakelite, it'll pass in a moment," River said.

It would take nearly fifteen minutes for all of the amplifier tubes to light up if they were going to, and both men started hovering around the equipment looking for signs of life; both in the equipment itself, and the world to the East of them.

River handed Spencer two small wires as he said "Put these on 1 on the first channel bank." Once they were connected, River attached a small meter which climbed to between the numbers 40 and 50. "Looks like 48V standby is good from the demarcation out of the de-multiplexer. I'll see if there's any audio," he said as he attached the jumper wires to the back of the phone. He picked it up, listened for a moment and said "I hear dead air, but it's not just the amp being hooked up, theres some background noise to the deadness. I think we might be listening to something that could start talking if it had a reason to. Can we attach a signal generator to the same port on the multiplexer side so anyone scoping would see something?"

Spencer took a small, old crystal radio out of his top desk drawer and set the frequency for 850 AM, which pulled in classical music. "Not sure where that's getting transmitted from," he said, "it's just barely strong enough to pull in here; it could be a hundred miles away. It never stops. Let's try this."

Spencer rigged up a direct injection box so he could connect the earphone wires right to the system, and said a little prayer as he set it down gently on the table. Meanwhile, River refurbished the phone and made sure the lights on the line selector worked, made sure it was securely connected and mounted it on the desk. It wouldn't ring because there was nothing to generate a ring current just because a microwave channel became active, but it would light up the "active" light on the old phone if they left it on-hook with the primary line left on-hold. "So, watch for the lights ...," River said. Spencer grabbed his hand tightly and said "Thank you. this was where I've wanted to get since we got here. I just didn't know enough to do it. Imagine knowing you have this if you can just make it work, every day, for years. This is a blessing to all of us, I can feel it!" he said, as he lit a joint, put his headphones on, and started watching the phone.

"Let's just hope East is the direction they had this old 4Ghz stuff for to begin with, and they had the same problems we did. If both of those things are true, then we have a hot and usable line," River thought as he headed to the main building to catch up with Bingham. He felt fairly safe, but something in his mind kept reminding him that he's getting to know a lot about something very valuable, while surrounded by people he doesn't know a lot about. He needed to get a bead on where things might be heading, especially if someone picked up the other end of that microwave hop.

"It's a newer, multiplier model," Bingham explained, holding a box that says New Multiplier Model "There's even a conduit adapter in the box that should fit your style pack," Bingham went on to say, like a child explaining a present to his mother that he'd just made for her. River liked how happy and simple Bing seemed to be; it's a personality that can't really be faked.

"This could get a little more complicated than just fixing the radio for an array?" River asked, softly and off to the side of Bingham's enormous ear, "or what else?" he followed up, a common way of asking if the clan would see him as a loose end that could blab sensitive information at which point Bingham interrupted and said "Nah, don't even think like that; I get you, but don't even think like that. First, we're not that kinda group. Second, the radio thing is only a little curiosity to see if we can get some extra intel or discrete ways to move our excess that spoils in storage. Don't fret a whim, man."

"Okay. Thanks for being on the right side of the pact; I'm just making sure I'm not looking at an emergency invitation to swear loyalty or find myself disappeared is all," River chuckled, making light of just being diligent about covering his ass.

Then, Bingham chimed in with something he wasn't expecting: "You know, I like how you handled that; I like how you handle a lot of things. How would you feel about changing your travel plans around a little, maybe sticking around this area a little while longer, see if something here might interest you?"

River knew he should stay quiet, but he felt relaxed enough to talk a little more. He told Bing that he was going to cash in a second-hand offer on the docks to raise some funds pretty quickly, but had apprehensions about going there cold and the travel in general. Maybe he just needed to say it out loud, to anyone, or maybe it was comfort knowing other possibilities existed, but he felt less apprehensive and he wasn't even medicated yet. "You can take that micro house with the blue door. It's secured, but unlocked. There's refreshments inside - this is hospitality so it's on me tonight, ok?" Bingham pointed at the small cluster of tiny homes by a communal fire pit, turned back to look at River and said, "I'll meet you out by the fire there later tonight just after sunset. You'll meet some of the rest of us. Now get yourself rested and cleaned up."

Hospitality was kind of mandatory; insulting people wasn't as deadly as ripping them off, but it was pretty close, and expected that you get full value from the host's efforts. River hated being told to have a "good time" because he apparently had no idea how to do that; every time he thought he was enjoying himself, people around him would insist he couldn't be, and then make him do things he didn't enjoy.

River turned the knob and the door, much heavier than it looked, opened almost silently on the hinges. Inside was plain, but very comfortable and soft furniture as well as a small table and chairs. There were several large bookcases filled with a wide variety of books, bottles of alcohol, cannabis, cigars, fruits and dried meats, juices and crystal clear water.

There was a small culinary storage cube in the far corner that contained fresh chicken meat, three eggs, picked beans and squash and some rendered fat for cooking. There was a small cookstove that could sit on the table stored under the sink. Water was available at the tap, and there was what appeared to be a working hot-water shower. Upon entering the lavatory, River noticed a small clothes washing station with spin dry. This place was definitely not hurting for power, that's for sure.

River took the first hot shower he'd had in weeks while washing his day clothes in the spinner. He hadn't spent much time in modern indoors, or indoors in general, and never felt very comfortable around things or people that couldn't get dirty. He understood perfectly well why people wanted homes and furnishings once they'd gotten used to having them; it was the whole getting used to having them part that bothered River the most. Why create a dependency that puts you at a disadvantage? Why want what you don't actually need?

The people who helped take care of River growing up, when his father was on trades that were too dangerous for kids to even shadow or when the ground fighting would flare up, would always report River's almost pathological need to do everything for himself as a symptom of being abandoned, but his father dismissed it as horseshit because River was way too young to remember much, and wasn't left alone more than a few hours while observing the violence raging around him anyway. In River's time, a few hours might as well be seconds, because violence is all many adults really ever see now.

The timer on the shower beeped, and the display began flashing (:30) and counting downward. He rinsed off any remaining soap and turned off the valve. The water, which had been nearly black when he started, now ran clear around his feet, which desperately needed an appointment with some clippers. River got dried off and dressed, and went back out to the main room. Seeing the pack show green in the charge level set him at ease - that's easily a month's supply of flux if he stretched it, and now he's got an array that can get him 10% in two hours. There was no sign that anyone had been in while he was showering, which was a relief. It was just a few minutes to sunset. River looked outside and saw the fire pit had been lit, and there was a bucket of bottles in ice between the first two chairs. River put on his belt and his leg holster, and snapped his hunting knife horizontally onto his belt after the buckle clicked, made sure he didn't miss any embarrassing spots in the shave he gave himself, and headed outside.

"The other side picked up." Bingham said, not mincing words at all as he continued, "the site in Annapolis had the same problem we did, just like you suspected. They're Southeast. There's one even closer, in Arnold, who has all frequencies running, and they can reach really far. Spencer said to tell you that the digital multiplexer in Arnold still works, whatever that means."

River was very good at controlling the limited emotional responses that he had, and this was no exception, but the excitement of the news combined with the peculiar concern over why he was being trusted so much so quickly made him glad to see the beer Bing had opened and put in front of him. "No label! Nice! Your own brew?" River asked, as he took a sip.

"My very own!" Bingham lauded, his voice active on more simultaneous octaves than usual as he did, "I brew seasonal beer inspired by our other crops, particularly the fruit trees that are abundant around here, both on and off the compound."

The beer was crisp with very pleasing flavors and not overly-bitter. In fact, it quenched his thirst so well that River swallowed almost too quickly to remark "wow, I could actually drink this in the sun and hydrate!" as he immediately took another sip, for science ...

"I use hops, sure, but not exclusively," Bingham replied, "There's also yarrow, heather, bog myrtle, plus apple and pear cores, our heirloom barley which we work hard on cultivating and spices that we grow ourselves and trade for. Can't make a proper summer ale without the fruit of the land you work to thirst for it."

River held up an empty bottle and said "further study is required."

Bingham obliged and the two men sat and watched the sun set, drinking hand-crafted beer, after a series of rather fortunate events. This was the kind of silence that made the noise worthwhile, and to remain so precious, it must always be short-lived. Bingham's radio crackled to life and Spencer's voice came through, "hey, knew you said you didn't wanna be bothered unless it was important, but they got back to us - said any time is cool but no more than two."

Bingham turned his head toward River and said, "Wanna make a few bars of silver?"

River, comfortable now that his position in whatever was unfolding in front of him was now "hired hand" and no longer "possible stakeholder" due to how Bing had just offered to bring him, held up his empty beer and said "I can taste the ghost of the myrtle. This is good!" and grabbed himself another beer without asking, indicating his acceptance of Bingham's offer. "That's four hours on foot," River added, "and that's east enough for cracks to be a possible issue," he continued as he popped the beer top on the edge of his seat.

"We'll take my ride; relax. Let's kill this bucket. Did you bring any ganja?" Bingham asked looking over at River, who handed him his doser as he said, "You probably want to turn that up a bit — it's set on micro-dose levels ..," pointing at the control.

Bingham set it for maximum output to be sure and retreated into his head for a while. River started feeling something unusual, something he found comforting but very unsettling and he couldn't pinpoint it. Then, it hit him rather plainly: gratitude. It had been a while since he felt the urge to just stop and appreciate the quality of a moment, so that's what he did, until he and the bucket were done being useful for the day. River said thanks to Bingham, walked over to the tiny house where he was staying, and fell asleep on the floor. Mattresses were one of those unnecessary dependencies River liked to avoid picking up.

River woke after a mostly-uninterrupted light night's sleep, which was much better than his usual frequently interrupted light night's sleep. He smelled meat cooking and followed the odor outside to the common cooking area. Bingham called out his name and gestured for him to come over. There were roughly thirty people there, including some young children. River walked over to where Bingham was seated with his oldest daughter Kress eating breakfast. "Have a seat!" Bingham said, "The folks who pulled KP today will have a plate over to you shortly ...," as he swept his arm to indicate people picking up plates of food from a counter. "We all have at least one day where we eat ahead of time with the cooks so we can serve everyone else. It just works out well that way. If we get too much bigger we'll probably need to make food server one of our occupations to get a bed here."

River nodded, as he really did understand. They all shoulder the tasks collectively, and can at any time break one off to become the sole responsibility of an individual. It's a healthy way to see if the clan is ready to grow. He had a lot of questions about the clanstead itself, but didn't want to be nosy, so he just kept his eyes open and paid attention.

The food was amazing: grilled chicken thigh chunks with eggs, beans and fresh made pita bread. There was serrano chili paste and cider vinegar for seasoning as well as fresh sea salt and ground peppercorns. "We eat like this every day man. We just don't settle for a lesser human experience," Bingham said while river was admiring the custom-welded setup that the cooks were preparing the food on. "It's five total square meters of cook and oven space," Bingham said, to bring River back to Earth. "They can feed up to 50 pretty easily," he added, "as long as the crops yield well."

After breakfast, Bingham laid out the details of what he wanted to do that day; the clan in Arnold has some high-voltage neon transformers that are needed in order to run the clan's new electro-coagulation filtration system that they hope will remove the microplastics from rainwater catchment and graywater waste. Microplastics, River shuddered, are what resulted in those menacing dog-eating poisonous-barb-launching crabs being created accidentally at that sewer plant; bred to eat industrial waste — what could go wrong?

"In exchange for the transformers and some other general staples, the clan in Arnold wants six liter jugs of rye whisky, a half-barrel of beer, a pound of cannabis sativa and a pound of cannabis indica. They also want 500 of the mild opiate pain reliever pills," Bingham enumerated like he was teaching a geometry class. All highly-prized by thieves everywhere, and sloshes around as you try to transport it. "We have a small armored truck just for instances like this, don't worry!" he said, as he supervised a few people rummaging through shelving in the shed beside the barn. "Get your gear man, I'll pick you up outside the main building in 10."

River was already packed, so he walked up to the main building and double- checked his pack: all good. He double checked his sidearm: all good. He double-checked his doser, and dialed it back down to micro-dose. If he had taken it the way it was set, he would have a raging hard-on and be in need of a nap. That's almost as stupid as taking a laxative and sedative simultaneously and River wondered how people could make those choices.

The armored truck was built on the frame of one of the old army amphibious assault vehicles, with some modifications to make it completely electric powered, and to deal with high-velocity, high-power rifles that can shoot through thinner steel plate. It appeared to be a composite armor made out of many layers of heavy fiberglass drenched in epoxy and dipped in ground industrial diamond dust prior to hardening. The diamond chunks and shards on the front alter the projectile stability, while the diamond edges score and scratch the outer casing of the projectile. As it penetrates the opposing layers of heavy welder's fiberglass, it loses mass as the scores and scratches cause it to splinter, along with velocity as it gets slowed by the epoxy and fiberglass resin. A thinner titanium plate was behind the reactive layer, followed by the enhanced steel layer.

"The armor basically slows the advanced rounds down to the same mass and velocity as the usual ones, so the usual armor is still okay by the time it gets there. One-two punch," Bingham explained, "titanium is hard to come by, but we got just enough. Our next tank will have this concept more deliberately built-in, this was just welded on. Anything heavier and the range would be decreased," Bingham gestured level over level with his forearms showing a little weight affecting it severely.

The inside was nice, climate controlled and very basic. Two levers controlled if the two treads the vehicle rode on went forwards, backwards or nowhere (neutral) just like an old-fashioned tank. It was capable of about 40kph on smooth terrain, and had a distance of about 300km on a full charge of flux. It used an evaporative thermal exchanger to keep the inside at a constant 25 degrees. The control panels were made from polished metal and beautiful carved wood, and electronics were at a minimum. A mobile 10-meter transceiver was welded to the side in front of an additional steel panel, which appeared to be connected to the cockpit communication system that connected the headsets. When shooting from any of the available gun ports, things would be very loud inside, so the headsets muffle out almost all sound.

"Three hours," Bingham said, as he gave the thumbs up through the hatch climbing down to the operator seat. "We make a straight shot for the river, keep it to our right the whole time we see it, and we'll run straight into their location. It'll be easy to spot their tower from at least a few miles out, the way the ground lays down there," Bingham said, as he maneuvered the truck onto the beat-down-over-time path ahead of it. They were taking a common route, plenty of light, clearly taking precautions; River felt confident that they wouldn't attract the attention of anyone sane. It was the other 95% of the local population that worried him.

"Hate to pry, not my business, tell me to shut up and I'll drop it, but can I ask a harmless question about our friends order down there?" River asked, inquisitively. "I'm just curious about what they needed," he added, making sure it didn't seem like a big deal of a question. "Just, did they ask for anything that wasn't for pain relief or partying?" he amended, hoping his point would be self-evident.

"No, come to think of it, their whole haul is booze and pain pills. What of it?" Bingham asked, wondering if River had suddenly developed a dislike for those who partook in alcohol as River chimed in "well, it could simply be that's all they needed and nothing at all to worry about. It's just interesting that, knowing they had you over a barrel with those transformers, the only stock they increased was the stuff the rougher folks tend to need to get through the day. I'm just wondering if we're heading toward some rider types, is all, you get me?" River asked, trying his best not to sound alarming, but curious instead.

"Wow, I hadn't really thought about it much. I'm glad I brought you along. I will say some of our best trade partners are those types exactly and we never have problems with them. But first times are always tense, so we'll have our insurance ready to go, you know?" Bingham said, looking ahead as he fixed both his sense of navigation and sense of how exactly this was likely going to go down.

River pulled his pack off and pulled out the magnum. He re-affixed the rare earth magnet rail on the top and pulled out two more from the same sleeve as the first, just half the thickness. The barrel now had a triangle shape to it and he loaded the plasma-tip rounds into the receiver. From his pack, he pulled out a small 4cm cube that locked via threaded connector onto the back of the rail, by the red dot. This applied flux to the accessory rail, which drove the targeting laser.

He remembered the time his father explained plasma rounds to him using an electromagnet, and how all those tiny nanocoils rushing past opposing magnetic fields generate a short but high burst of voltage, and how the gel becomes a multiplier for the tiny arc, turning it into a small bolt of lightning you can shoot out of a gun. The gel solidifies almost on contact, right as it mushrooms to make the biggest possible cavity loaded with the punch of a livestock prod. Even if they're wearing armor, these will hurt.

"90 Seconds out from their perimeter" Bingham called over the comm, "they're expecting two of us, so c'mon up here where you can peek out and be seen with me when we open the lid." River got in place and folded his hands unassumingly in front of his stomach.

Bingham stopped the vehicle and popped the hatch. Both men stood up, then climbed out on to the roof of the vehicle. If anyone was waiting for them, they hadn't made themselves known yet. Bingham secured the hatch and climbed down, River followed. Both men kept their hands out in front of them. "Let's walk toward the gate?" River asked-and-suggested at the same time with the tone of his voice, "I don't like standing around." he followed firmly with, as he started taking steps toward the gate.

"We didn't think you guys would show," a woman's voice called from about twenty meters behind them. She'd just pulled in on a very quiet electric ATV and was still wearing a robe. "I got your neon thinga-wa-hoobies or whatever the fuck you said in the trailer on that thing," she kind of crowed, gesturing at the ATV with wagon attachment. "I got your happy place," Bingham said, as he gestured at the truck. The woman nodded and started walking back to her vehicle. "Why don't you go pull up closer while I stay here and keep the ground warm?" River said to Bingham who was about to say the same thing. "Yeah man, hope this stays chill, be right back with the truck!" Bingham said as he walked off and climbed back into the vehicle.

River heard a tap sound that came from his chest and he realized that something just tapped his body armor. Then again, but this time in the softer section around the joint and River immediately recognized the tranquilizer dart. He immediately dropped below the tall grass height and monkey-leapt toward the pine thicket ahead of him. His very next thought was wondering if Bing made it back to the truck before getting hit with one too, as he tried to get a fix on where the darts were coming from. He saw the flash of what looked like eyeglasses in the trees at the west edge of the treeline, so he pulled out the rifle and leveled the dot just in front of where he'd seen the flash.

He saw a branch to the left shake, saw that the person had just jumped trees, and started firing ahead of them rapidly with the plasma rounds. Three shots were let off, two made a loud snapping noise as they penetrated cheap composite plate armor at 2000 feet per second sending 15kv pulses to the unlucky asshole he just hit. River heard a crack, a thud and a low cycle of gasp and gurgle; he'd either shot through a rib, or broke one so bad it penetrated a lung, but that shooter was down for good. There was a faint odor of cooked flesh in the air, indicating the rounds had hit skin and discharged. "Nobody fucking steals me." he murmured under his breath as he pulled back from his aim.

River tossed the rifle back in the speed sling and pulled out his Hellcat as he went running toward the truck. Bingham had been hit with one but was sitting down, upright with the woman they saw earlier back and pointing a plasma rifle at him. River had a red dot near her knees, threw the hellcat on full auto and squeezed. He heard the clang of metal as he realized she had augmentations. By this time he was close enough to sight, flipped the selector back to single and squeezed off a round aimed directly ahead of her trigger guard. The sharp sound of metal twang and ricochet rang out right before the sound of her rifle hitting the ground; he'd hit it right out of her hands, but the bullet ricocheted back and clipped his eyebrow.

"You wanna keep pushing your luck or you want to tell us what the fuck?" River demanded in a low growl that people even far away could distinctly hear. He had her head in his red dot and shouted "Should I find out if this face is bullet proof too?" over to Bingham, who was starting to figure out what just happened to them.

"Did you think you could take our truck as a bonus?" River asked, his sights still trained on the woman. "Nah, sweet cheeks, it's you: you got a big fat bounty on your head. Here, read it and weep," she said, as she handed River a piece of paper with a wax seal and lithograph of his right thumb print. The bounty was for less than a pound of silver. River felt somewhat relieved, and somewhat offended - it must be for a fine or something. "I'm keeping this, thanks," River said as he holstered his weapon.

"No problem. It's not about the money, it's about who wants you. Someone who knows your dad. Watch your ass if you head north, they have that facial recognition shit even though they shouldn't. Your transformers are old brand new; never used, was surplus from my late husband's neon sign collection," she rasped.

"Understood," Bingham said, "I never mentioned he was coming, you never heard him on the radio. How did you know he'd even be here with me today to try and collect?"

"Y'all be good now come back anytime!" as she pulled off slowly with enough booze to stone an army. River looked at Bingham and said, "I don't know her, but she must have known me, somehow. My father had many friends but also some really powerful enemies, and a lot of unfinished business. I don't talk about it much, but it's nothing to worry about."

Bingham shrugged, gestured in a "come on" for River to get back inside and closed the hatch. "Still thinking about Baltimore, or are you open to hanging out with us for a while?" Bingham asked as they pulled off quietly into a brisk pitch black night.

"You might not know just how well folks know you, from your dad," Bingham said, "it just occurred to me: you had no idea I recognized you too. Wow. You must have thought I was a saint!" he laughed as he elbowed River. "I mean it wasn't like you would get some kind of free pass, but that's why Whista and I didn't approach you in a very different way than how we did."

River laughed out loud, even meaning a tiny part of it. "I had been wondering how you managed to survive that well being so amenable but that makes perfect sense now. Just so you know, I'm not him. I follow his pact, but I'm not him." River asked Bingham as he finished stowing the rest of the transformers away.

"I have something I need to give a man there, at least, from his brother who he's expecting. It's like that. Honestly, I'm thinking about it, but I don't belong in one place for too long, you know?" River said.

"Yeah, we're good. Just think about it on the way back. Otherwise, at least let us give you a ride up there and hang around a little while in case shit goes south," said Bingham.

"Okay," River said, acknowledging Bingham on his way into his own thoughts to figure out his next move. It was a good offer, good place, good people, but there's no evidence of what the bad is yet. Bingham filled his doser and hit it. Reloaded, cranked it up, and handed it to Bingham who had put on some music: Take Five by The Dave Brubeck Quartet.

They rode the rest of the way to Gambrills enjoying the comfort of the quiet of the journey, minus the constant thuds and bumps along the flats they followed back. River thought of his father.

Stay Tuned For More!

Long Lines is serial fiction released on a quarterly cadence. Silver Spring, Laurel and Dundalk are the first three chapters of Volume I, which has a total of twelve planned chapters (all take place in Maryland, except the volume finale):

• This Installment: Silver Spring, Laurel, Dundalk
• Coming next: Middle River, Baltimore, Ellicott City (By Mid-July, 2025)
• Coming later: Fredrick, Antietam, Berkeley Springs (By Mid-October, 2025)
• Coming Last: Cumberland, Friendsville, Hazleton, WV (By 12/31/2025)

I will likely post a few other things between now and the next release, so please check out the long-lines tag and pull a feed if you'd like to keep up to date on just this story (I'd love it if you subscribed, too!)

If you enjoyed this installment, tell someone else about it! If you hated this installment, tell me. Feedback and coffee are very much appreciated!