All Upon The Watchtower

Desolation Peak

thank you for reading!!  i defined some terms in the next chapter

George is glad he'd kept secretly saving his wages from the Imperial Armies of the greatest superpowers in the world. He has just enough for a plane ticket to Seattle, Washington and a couple cans of food.

The plane from London is long, as he held his bag tightly in his arms, careful to keep it's contents safe from prying eyes.

Seattle is grey and rainy— the air remains chilly and the skies overcast. He takes a train from the airport, walking around Pike's Place and pulling his wool coat tight. Freshly caught fish fly through the air, the smell of flower mixing with the falling drizzle. George finds shelter by a corner in the market, next to a poster encouraging people to report any communist activity. He smiles to himself. Ironic.

He uses the last of his savings to purchase enough food to sustain himself for the summer, taking a complimentary newspaper to shield his hair from falling rain. Reading the bus signs and paying the fare, George manages to reach the ranger station at the edge of town, where he'll be taken to the station in Marbelmount.

He rides in the back of a van with many burly men, all heading to various peaks within the Cascades. George was incredibly out of place— there he sat, his pressed coat and British accent, holding his bag of contraband and brain full of classified secrets of the future. He's seen the equations, the notecards, and the codes of the last ear computers, and worked to give a pile of wires the voice and reasoning of a human. Those mathematical equations, those algorithms would be the future, a future so powerful the great imperial powers that be struggled to contain it, to use it for their own ends. They used him just like they'd used the burly men on all sides, who'd spent their lives slaving away, no union to protect them.

Opening the newspaper and being greeted with depictions of America in flames, he gives a small sigh— he certainly couldn't say his thoughts out loud.

At the Marbelmount ranger station, the men go through a rigorous fire fighting training and head further up the Skagit Valley, more and more of the men breaking off as he continues further up.  He crosses the breathtakingly blue Lake Diablo, across the dam, and across Ross Lake by a small dingy.  The Ranger drops him off at the edge of the lake with a map.  Exiting and watching the last person he'd see the entire summer speed off, George touches a hand in the warm lake before heading up the trail. 

The trail is a stunning six miles up to Desolation Peak— the air is damp and cold, permeating into his bones.  The solitude, mixed with the verdant pines and soft drizzle rejuvenates him.  He was free; free from the constrains of society, free from the ever-reaching grasp of the army— he can finally be himself. 

The hike goes fast in his glee, and he quickly finds the small, white building on the top of the peak.  It would be his home for the summer, his refuge from his past that followed him.  Radioing the Ranger Station that he'd arrived, he opens the door and walks in.

He puts his cans of food on the counter— there's no electricity, just a wood burning stove and a chilly cabinet. A couch sits by the door, a bed in the back corner. The house is warm and cozy, just the perfect temperature to stay out of the perpetual mist of the Cascades, a reprieve from the summer sun.

It's homely, it's inviting, just as the man standing in the doorway is.

The gentleman has an unreadable expression in his eyes— his dirty blond hair lays, disheveled across his eyes, a scruffy beard outlining his his jaw. The man smiles.

"Ah, the fire watch, you're here. I'll be heading out."

He offers no information about his wearaboughts.