Kahli hesitated as she walked the road back to the house. Sitting on the fence was a young, blonde, freckled face woman, and she greeted Kahli with a bright smile as she approached. She jumped off the fence.
"You must be Kahli!"
"I think you've mistaken be for the other new chick in town," Kahli said with a smirk.
The woman laughed. "I'm Emily! I'm your neighbor. I live with my grandmother right up there at the farm! I wanted to introduce myself and give you this." She dug through a bag at her feet and pulled out a pie. "Granny made it for you. She would have come herself, but she has a hard time getting around. But she's excited to meet you, so come by sometime, yeah?"
Kahli took the pie from Emily. "What if I'm a serial killer?"
"Ha! Well, just make sure you tell Gran you liked the pie, first, okay?"
"Unless this is all a plot to get rid of me," Kahli said. "She poisoned the pie, didn't she?"
Emily grinned and rolled her eyes. "She may have added a... secret ingredient."
"Is it love?"
Emily laughed. "So, I know you've only been here for like, a day, but how do you like Portia so far?"
"It's nice," Kahli said. "I'm not used to seeing so much greenery."
"Where did you live before?"
"Barnarock."
Emily nodded. "Ah, yep. You're not in Barnarock anymore, girl. But everyone here's really nice."
"Hm," Kahli started. "Even that Higgins guy?"
"Well, everyone else." She laughed. "Who have you met so far?"
Kahli pinched her lips together as she tried to recall some names. "Well, Presley and Gale. And, uh, Antoine. And Arlo. And some other names were mentioned, but I haven't met them. Petra and... Merlin? And Sam and Remington."
"Ah, yes, the good ol' Corps. You'll see a lot of them as they make their patrols. Arlo is the leader of the Portia branch here." She leaned in and nudged Kahli with her elbow. "And he's not bad to look at, either."
Kahli blushed. "Well, alright, then."
Emily laughed. "I hear he's single."
"That's... good to know."
Emily pushed herself back onto the fence. "There's a few cute guys around," she continued on. "Have you met Dr. Xu?" She sighed dreamily. "Gotta love a good looking doctor, am I right?"
"I guess."
"Unless women are more your style," she continued. "There's Phyllis." She whistled. "Beauty and brains, that one. She works with Dr. Xu. Sam, of course. She's a fun, spunky little thing. And Petra. Very smart. Very cute."
"I should probably just date 'em all," Kahli said.
Emily shrugged. "Might as well." She grinned. "Unless... you've got someone back in Barnarock?"
Kahli shook her head. "Nope. I, uh, don't have the best dating history."
"Are you the crazy type?"
"I like to think I'm low on the crazy scale." Kahli shrugged. "Just never had a relationship that lasted for more than a few months. They always end up being weird or assholes or boring."
Emily laughed. "Well, I think everyone here is pretty normal and interesting. You'll see. And I get the sense you're interesting, too. You'll be liked around here."
"I hope so." Kahli turned to face the workshop. "Don't tell anyone, but I don't know what the fuck I'm doing."
"You know, I don't think anyone here knows what they're doing, really." She shrugged. "I think you'll find that a lot of people here are kinda like you. Just kinda ended up here, yanno?"
"What about you?"
"I was born and raised here," Emily said. "I always wanted to go out into the world and explore it like my grandfather did. But my parents work in Atara and I didn't want to leave Gran alone, so I stayed to help her on the ranch. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love being here and have no regrets, but it certainly wasn't what I thought I'd be doing." She paused. "I'm guessing you didn't expect to be a builder, then?"
Kahli shook her head. "To be honest, I never really had any goals or dreams." She shrugged. "I'm boring and not ambitious, I guess."
"I don't think that's true," Emily said. "You came here. That's something."
Kahli frowned. "I don't know why I came here," she said. "I don't know what I thought I'd find here. Answers, I guess. Explanations. I dunno. But so far, I've found nothing. Shouldn't have expected anything, really."
"I thought your father gave you this place."
"He did. But I haven't seen him in years. He dumped me on my aunt after my mother died and took off on some adventure of his own." She rolled her eyes. "You know, I think at one point, I wanted to be like him. Running off on some adventure and leaving everything else behind. But then as I got older I realized how fucked up it all was."
Emily frowned. "I'm sorry. That sounds shitty."
Kahli shrugged. "Well, now you know way more about me than I'm sure you wanted to know."
Emily offered her a warm smile. "No way," she said. "It's nice to have a friend to talk to."
"You might change your mind."
Emil laughed and pushed herself off the fence. "We'll see," she said. "I'll let you get to work. Or, attempt to work, anyway." She winked. "Good luck. Enjoy the pie! And don't be a stranger!"
*****
Kahli spent the rest of the day and well into the evening digging out her father's old notebooks and flipping through the pages of notes. To her relief, her father kept detailed notes and diagrams, and after digging through the old workshop on the property, she managed to dig out some of his old equipment. It was all foriegn to her, but after a couple of hours, she managed to figure out what each machine did and how to use it. She found some notes on the other bridges he had built and made note of the process. Wood boards would need to be cut, bricks would need to be made, and somehow, she would have to melt some copper and bronze into pipes and plates. She was certain she should have had some kind of college degree to do all this. At the very least, some kind of knowledge of how to operate the machines without losing a finger. Maybe the people of Portia assumed her father had passed down this knowledge to her.
Boy were they wrong.
Kahli dreamt in diagrams that night, unable to get them out of her head. They haunted her, causing her to toss and turn for most of the night until a distant rooster crowed to the sunrise.
She sat at the table with a luke warm cup of coffee in her hands, her eyelids drooping low as she stared off into space. She would have to start somewhere, and she supposed her best option was to begin gathering the materials she would need. Wood. Copper. Tin. She groaned to herself when she realized she would need to mine in the ruins for the copper and tin.
What had she gotten herself into?
When she finished her coffee, she dragged herself outside, only to be greeted by two questionably dressed men. They were tall and lanky, and if she were being honest, the bald one looked like a complete idiot. His partner spoke first.
"How do, new citizen? I'm Agent T, and this is my partner, Agent H. We are a part of the Free Cities Deb Collection Agency."
Kahli hesitated. "Can I help you?"
"Yes." He cleared his throat. "It has come to our attention that you are the offspring of the former owner of this workshop. Is that correct?"
"I am," she said warily.
"Oh, good! Your father accrued 50,000 Gols in debt from his business. Since we cannot find him, the debt has fallen to you, his closest kin. Because I'm a nice guy, I'll give you a week to come up with the money. If you don't pay up, we'll take his house as collateral. If you try to run, we will inform the Civil Corps. That's all. You have a good day, now!"
Kahli stared at them, dumbfounded, as they turned away and walked briskly down the road. As they disappeared over the hill, a realization washed over her.
"Sonnovabitch!" She shouted. Leave it to her father to shove all his problems on to her.