The Joining Event
"How's the prep coming?"
I set the hacksaw against the barrel and put my weight into it.
— krrk-krrk, krrk-krrk…
Careful not to nick my hands, I worked the blade forward and back until the metal rod began to give. Once I got into a real rhythm, the room filled almost at once with a racket of cutting steel.
— click, shhk, shhk, clack.
I loaded a shell, then pressed the simple safety that kept the trigger from firing.
Shortened barrels in a triple-barrel layout — that one was for Dietrich, for self-defense. Triple barrels again, but longer tubes and a wooden stock — that was for James. A short double-barrel with a little extra work on the stock, a rubber pad I'd even managed to stamp a crude pattern into: a special shotgun for Sara, who would have to take the lead. And for myself, last of all, a double-barrel with no stock at all, only a pistol grip — built for close quarters rather than long-range work.
…With primitive shotguns like these, we were bound to fall short. Paper casings had their limits, too.
What I needed now was the bunker's blueprints, or a server room that could reach the intranet. Pull the right information from there and we could hunt down military zones without leaning on pure luck. If fortune was kind, I wouldn't even have to manufacture ammunition myself — and even if the components were scattered in pieces, I could reassemble them. More importantly, once we started collecting spent casings in earnest, I could reload as much as I wanted. From then on I'd need brass catchers, sure — but I could make those, too. What the Omens, being American, would make of brass catchers was another question entirely.
"You can come in."
"It's been an hour since you said we were leaving… wow."
Sara had grown unusually picky lately. I handed her the shotgun without delay.
"Here. Special-issue shotgun."
I guided her fingers to the stock so she could see what I'd carved into it.
SARA OMEN
carved there by my own hand—
"You're missing the H."
"Huh?"
"When it's Sara, it's usually Sarah — with an ah, not just a."
I couldn't really hear the difference in the pronunciation, but the point was that I'd gotten it wrong.
"Give it back, then. I'll recarve it."
"No."
She laughed under her breath and hugged the gun to her chest, a wide smile blooming across her face.
…One way or another, she liked the gift. That much was clear.
"So every gun in here is mine, then…?"
"Of course not. This one's for James."
"JAMES… yeah, you got the name right. Oh — but Dad always liked writing a really big red '1' on his stuff."
"A really big… one?"
"Yeah. The number one. Grandpa and Dad were both First Infantry Division. Their division insignia is a big red 1."
"I can do that right now if you want. And for you, Sara—"
"No way. I've finally got something to tease him about for years. You think I'm letting that go?"
…Right. I sighed and picked up the spray can from the desk. After pulling my gas mask back over my face, I wrote a thick '1' on paper, cut it out, pressed it to the stock, and gave it a heavy coat of spray.
"It'd be fun to paint them properly later, too."
"We'll need more materials for that, but…"
"Could we do that ourselves?"
"You know how?"
"In games you paint guns all kinds of colors. I've always wanted to try that once."
A game character talking about games. That was a new one.
I pulled the mask off and held up my own shotgun in front of her.
"I'll show you how it works."
"I already know. This is the safety, you cock it before you fire, pull the trigger — pull both and both barrels go at once."
Huh.
But these were improvised shotguns—
"You made one before, remember? The single-shot version."
"…Ah."
While I was making shells, I had put together a one-shot improvised shotgun as a test piece.
"I swept the workshop before we went out for supplies. Grabbed ammo and that shotgun while I was at it."
"And you… lost them, or something?"
"No. I organized everything into the warehouse. And I was going to hand the shotgun over while I was at it… here."
…So I'd made at least one gun I didn't need to make. It would have been nice if she'd mentioned that earlier.
"Uh… you made shells too, right?"
I nudged the ammo crates under the desk with my foot.
…Why the hell had I pulled an all-nighter, then. I should have looked through the warehouse more carefully to begin with. A mistake I never would have made in the game — one mouse click and you could check resource totals… no. At the very least I should have asked before I started working.
"All right. Here's what we do."
While I pressed my tired eyes, Sara perched on the edge of the workbench in front of me. Then she gently lifted my chin with her fingers until our eyes met.
"From now on, use me as your assistant."
Assistant?
Well, sure — having one would raise efficiency. A specialist assistant could even craft most items the way I did. But that was a game thing. Would she really accept someone who pulled tools out of thin air at the workbench, or mixed mystery compounds into syringes?
"For safety reasons—"
"A guy who handles gunpowder has been working in this dump and never once blown himself up."
"Because I'm careful."
"With those dark circles under your eyes?"
"I've never had an accident so far—"
"And if your body falls apart here, then what?"
She sighed once and pressed both of my cheeks between her hands.
"Nobody told you to grind yourself into the dirt. Nobody told you to build things like a maniac, either."
"If you're worried, I'm fine—"
"Listen."
Insomnia would cut my stamina by about twenty percent and increase drain, sure — but that wasn't the real issue. In a game it wouldn't matter. Here, where things worked like reality, people would start asking questions. Tools popping out of nowhere like some blue robot cat's bottomless pockets.
"You said it was loyalty, right?"
"…Yeah."
"Then as a friend, at least, I don't want to watch you go without sleep every night. So pick one. Either sleep at the same time as the rest of us, or take me on as an assistant and raise your efficiency."
I thought it over for a moment. My body was hitting its limit, and without sleep the gains to strength and endurance dropped off, too.
"The bottleneck is… machining and assembly."
"Then I'll handle the assembly. Right?"
"…Right."
Most of what the workbench did was machining. Assembly just needed a screwdriver and a hammer, more or less.
"Good. Then recon can wait until after lunch. Get some sleep until then."
"The gear—"
"First job as your assistant. I'll deliver them."
Before I could get another word out, a brightly energized Sara had stripped every gun off me. I turned to watch her open the door and leave — and she stopped dead in her tracks.
"…Oh, and."
She hesitated, scuffing one foot against the floor…
"You know there was never any such thing as loyalty between a man and a woman, right?"
She tossed that single line over her shoulder and bolted like a shot.
No loyalty? Never was?
Did that mean she was giving me special treatment? Did that mean the gift offensive had worked?
"…I have no idea. Haa… at least I can sleep, though."
If there was one upside to bunker life, it was this. No sunlight, no traffic — close a door and the place went dead quiet whenever you wanted.
"Yaaawn."
I stretched out on the blanket laid across the workshop floor and shut my eyes.
"Here, Dad. Your gun."
James's eyes went wide at the handsome triple-barrel shotgun. At the same moment, Curtis's brow furrowed.
"What, so those short ones are mine?"
"No… looking at them, this one says Dietrich."
"What? Then where's mine?!"
"You've still got your double-barrel, Father."
"You sold my trench gun to a bunch of Nazis and now you're telling me I get nothing? What kind of—"
James beamed as he turned the weapon over in his hands. Curtis clicked his tongue beside him. Even so, Sara couldn't quite bring herself to leave the room with the remaining shotguns; she just stood there and sighed.
"…What? Don't tell me he only made one for you."
"No, it's not that…"
"I knew it. That thick-skulled workaholic tore my granddaughter's heart to shreds again. Tch."
Sara's head dipped in a tiny nod. James gave a helpless little smile.
"Why not just tell him you like him first?"
"Are you insane? What if he turns me down?"
"Two people who've saved each other's lives once don't fall apart that easy."
"…And I already basically confessed. Sort of."
"What did you say?"
"That, uh… there's no such thing as friendship between a man and a woman."
The room went quiet for a beat. Then the laughter broke.
"No, seriously — after saying that much, how does he not get it?"
Sara stamped her feet, face flushed red and blue by turns, while the two older men forgot both their complaints and their awe over the shotguns and slapped their thighs hard enough to sting. The room was just starting to fill with laughter when a new current of air cut through it.
"E-excuse me."
Angela Dietrich shoved the door open, still catching her breath. Then she straightened and spoke to everyone at once.
"Survivors."
"A group of survivors? Or…"
"They're badly hurt. We need your help."
Damn it.
I'd thought I might actually get a little sleep.
"Should we push recon to tomorrow?"
"We might still have to go out today. We never found proper medical supplies."
"What we have now—"
"If someone else gets hurt after that, we're in real trouble."
I pulled on gloves and covered my mouth with a cloth.
"I can help—"
"You can't just touch them wrong. That's what treatment is."
"Says the man who was just complaining about being tired?"
"…"
Instead of answering, I drained a bottle of water.
"Keep watch on the perimeter. Dietrich — the patients?"
"Mostly cuts and tears."
"Bite marks?"
"No tooth patterns. Whatever did it, it wasn't zombies."
"Then either ground bats… or Dogfoot."
"Dogfoot?"
"Ever seen a dog walk on two legs?"
"…When they were doing tricks, sure."
"These ones walk like people now. Their legs haven't turned into hands yet, though."
Hard to picture if you hadn't seen one. I'd been confused the first time myself.
"Patients first."
"Yes. The three of you, please keep a careful watch outside. And until we say it's all right — do not, under any circumstances, come in!"
With that, we went straight into the medical room. The empty cabinets stood out sharply; our supplies were still far too thin.
And then.
"…Christ."
A man and a woman, both soaked in blood, lay on separate steel tables. Looking at how much they'd lost, it was bad. Really bad.
…Damn it.
This was not how I'd wanted to start taking people in.