Desert Wake ✔

Ch. 3, pt. 2: Partygoers' Luck

I cain barely breathe from takin' all this in. My eyes glisten at the corners, but I refuse to cry. Ro looks a mite apologetic, layin' all this on me, but he's got a story to finish, so he keeps goin'.

What Amos said, Ro takes to heart. He don't bury it back in his mind like he did the sufferin' of the refugees back when he was a boy. Till this point, the underground press has acted to git information out to the common poor. But him and Stuart agree that it's time to inform the genteel population of the followin'—their perfect little world ain't nothin' but a dream nearly come to an end.

So, they git to work, writin' up a booklet detailin' the desert's spread over the years, and estimatin' how long it'll take to reach the Regions. They don't just take Amos' word fer it, neither. They talk to dozens of refugees from all over the land, ask 'em when they left their homes, what year the desert reached 'em, how fast the dust storms traveled. So on and so forth. This helps 'em form what they feel is a fairly accurate depiction of the continent's process of desertification. And it confirms Amos' statement in a most alarmin' way—it won't be but a few years 'fore the luck of their kind takes a turn fer the worse.

The three of 'em, Amos, Ro, and Stuart, write up their findings and Ro gits to printin'. They start with five hundred copies, which don't maybe seem like a lot, but it's enough to fuel the flames. 'Fore long, their booklet, Why the Spread of the Desert Should Matter to You, is the talk of the town. People pass their copies 'round, speculating as to its truthfulness. It don't take more than a month or two fer them to start questionin' their leaders.

This ain't no poor folks' rally Ro and his friends are plannin'. It's a whole renovation of society. They want the government to wise up and tell the truth fer once, but the government—they're still hostin' their party, and they ain't wantin' to go home and deal with their hangovers just yet. They like keepin' folks in the dark, thank you very much, and they don't want no one to listen to these lies, as they call 'em. As you'd expect, this is when the law comes down on Ro's little band of rebels.

One evening, Ro is on his way to the latest location of the press. He's figurin' to start printin' another run of booklets and is real excited about the prospect, thinkin' of the stirrin' the first run did within the lucky parts of the city. Up ahead, he spies smoke, and that ain't good. Soon as he sees it, he knows the press's been compromised, which means they're goin' to have to start over with all new equipment and supplies, yet again.

Only it's worse than that.

Just as he's contemplatin' how close he cain get to the fire without drawin' attention to himself, one of his fellow lucky conspirators, a woman named Breanna, comes hurryin' 'round the corner, holdin' her arm against herself, soot covered and grey tears streamin' down her face.

"They're burning us all," she cries, and Ro thinks she must be out of her mind, but no, she's just statin' a simple fact. Her singed hair's the only proof she needs. She says the law came, waited till they knew there was people inside the press room, sealed the doors shut, and set the place on fire. Breanna managed to break through a boarded up window, but the wall she climbed through collapsed right after her exit. "They're all dead, Ro. Gods, they're all dead."

All dead means fourteen good people, includin' Amos. And it would have been Ro too if he'd shown up a half hour earlier. Ro heads back to the lucky zone that night, heartbroken, and directionless. What's he gonna do now? He cain't quit, and yet, look what his friends got fer their efforts. Cain he put others at risk that way again? He feels responsible, seein' as he's a decent person who thinks heavily upon these sorts of things. But he ain't the one who should be carryin' this burden, as he soon finds out.