Alan Fouren
LOCALE // Smith's Rest, New ̵Anchoragȩ
TIME // Afternoon
Alan was not exactly happy with how the entire event went. To say that he was sullen was an understatement; he’d been one of the first of the pilots to go into the bar and find himself a quiet seat away from the others. He didn’t have the patience to deal with Ryn’s barbs right now anyway. His main goal was to just relax and try to get the event out of his mind. It wasn’t that this was the first time it’d been like this. Hell, this was the only way it ever was.
His place had always been around the rust, the dirt and the trash; he was born in it and it seemed that he'd be living the waster til his little flame was snuffed out like all the rest. After all, that's what wasters like Alan were meant for. Chaff to be ground up by the violence and death in the wastes. They weren't soldiers, they weren't guards and they sure as hell weren't heroes. They were just pilots for hire, living and dying by the highest bidder.
He wasn't a soldier like Stein. He wasn't an idealistic fool like Percy. He was just trash. No hard feelings, you're just waster trash.
Three years ago
Big Crater Township, Denver-Vegas Zone
It was the largest town he’d been to since he left the south, and he was hoping that this would be his chance to make something of himself. Enough time hunting and searching for Gold. Maybe this would be his chance to rest, and rethink his life. Big Crater was one of the largest non-megacities on the divide, and that meant work, contracts and a need for a good pilot. And while the Wolf didn’t seem to be an impressive NC, Alan’s skills made up for the lack of shine.
He was running sorties within a week; and there he’d made enough camaraderie with some of the other pilots to sit down at the bar and drink. Half-hearted smiles, jokes and ribs made him feel that maybe somewhere underneath the skin, there was still a person underneath.
“So, where’re you originally from?” A man who couldn’t have been older than 25 finally said, sitting down next to Alan. The speaker was Greg Dorsey, one of the pilot’s he’d met. Greg was a tall man with broad shoulders, bright eyes and a toothy grin, but beyond that he also made the pilots feel like they had a place in town.
“Atlanta, just outside the city.”
“Oooh, country boy eh?”
“Scrapper.”
“Hell, it fits your mech, Al.” The man laughed, slapping Alan on the back.
They ran sorties for a month before Alan woke up with a start. Several armed guards stood around his bunk, eyeing him. “Check his belongings.” They muttered, as they tore through Alan’s pack.
His heartbeat pounded in his chest as he wildly looked at the men, wondering exactly who, what, why it all these people were. Why?
“Here, in his footlocker!” Alan was snatched upward from his bed, and he felt the cold iron of the metal club dig into his stomach.
Waster trash. Fucking thief. Goddamn rat.
Alan was stripped naked, thrown into a cold cell beaten and bruised. All for what? They said they’d found some ration cards hidden away in his footlocker.
He could try and say he was innocent. But it didn’t matter what he knew. No, in the end they found the cards in his locker, so he was a thief. He was an outsider, so he was a thief. He was a waster, so he was the goddamn thief.
He was locked up for two months, and had to fight tooth and nail after being released to get his belongings and the Wolf back into his care. Contracts dried up. He was shunned everywhere. Dirty, thieving waster. When he finally had enough and packed his gear, Greg Dorsey came to see him.
No hard feelings.
I needed to hide the cards somewhere.
Just a little money on the side.
Every word built the wall higher and higher around Alan. Ultimately, no one in the wastes had friends. In the end, it was always about what someone could get for themselves. It was about profit, money, power, sex, violence…
In the wastes there is no family. No friends. No kindness or rest.
Present time.
The cantina.
“Alan,”
The soft voice of the woman shook Alan. He’d been sitting there, staring off into space, sipping at his beer for a while now lost in the thoughts and memories of places like this; places he’d sat in and drank and talked and smiled countless times before. Times where people had smiled and patted him on the shoulder and stabbed him in the back.
“Is this spot taken?”
“Nah, it’s fine. Make yourself comfortable.”
“How are you doing? After the questions, I mean.”
”To be honest Miss Eli, I just wish there was a hole I could crawl in and die after that roast.” He sighed and drank again from his beer. “It’s not like it’s a new thing. No one threw any bottles at me, no one screamed waster trash. I mean, as far as public hangings go, it was a pretty calm one.
"So this sort of thing is common for you."
"Doing big grandiose speeches for the regular folk isn't common, no. But being accused of being a thief, a murderer or a vagrant is par for the course of what I've seen from both the Atlantic to the Pacific. Turns out people aren't too fond of mercenaries piloting big, nuclear powered death machines." He shook his head, trying to half-heartedly smile at Eli, but even that looked pathetic.
Eli seemed to settle with that for a moment, sipping away at the glass of water, but her eyes stayed on him. Eventually she replied, slow. "Perhaps when those mercenaries were, not so long ago, beating down their doors, the caution can be understandable."
"I understand the fear. Hell, I know how horrible raiders can be first hand." He closed his eyes after that. "It's just hard to feel like a human being when you're just expecting to be run out when someone misplaces their jewelry."
"We aren't a small settlement concerned with petty theft. As long as you don't point your weapons at these people, you're doing no harm." Then she paused, another drink, clearly thinking her words over. "For what it's worth, your loyalty specifically is not a primary concern. There are other pilots here who will shoulder a heavier burden earning New Anchorage's trust, I imagine you'll find the place warm sooner than you think."
"That's...oddly sweet coming from you, Miss Eli," Alan said, placing his now empty beer down. "I'll say this on trust though: I want to trust the people i'll be going into battle with. Even if it's just trusting them to watch my back and to not let me get killed out there. I may seem like a sadsack, but I've got a lot to do before I kick the bucket."
The girl seemed to preen at the praise in her own, stony way. She mirrored him somewhat, draining a good remainder of her water and setting it down in tandem. "We all have our duty. If Graham is the commander everyone thinks he is, I should hope none of us...'kick the bucket' before we've seen it through. As for the matter of trust,"
She looked back to the bar, to the other pilots present. Her eyes flittered over Harrison Kane, then faster past the clearly-lost Percy, Ryn, and hung just a moment longer on the young Russian girl, before she returned to her drink. Her voice lost its formal edge, briefly. "It would be nice for the pilots to trust each other, yes. Maybe even necessary."
"If we're going to be here for the long haul defending this place, we're going to have to learn to." He looked over to the group as well, and sighed at Percy's antics. "We don't have to like each other. We're not family. But trust-that's good enough for me."
"Were you friends with your old team?"
"We were like..." Alan's face contorted as if he was in serious pain for a moment. And to be honest; he was. His chest tightened as he croaked out the last words. "brothers." They fought together. Lived together. Grew up together. They all died together, leaving him behind.
Eli was quiet for a moment, as if she understood how shaking the memories were to him. She sounded formal again, perhaps because she didn't know how to properly proceed, perhaps because she felt it was the most respectful way to do so, it was unclear. "I am a firm believer in the idea that we choose our family, Alan. The bonds are no doubt stronger, but the loss must be just as much. I can understand the fear of that loss, I'm sorry."
"It's fine." He said, biting his lip slightly. The sudden pain from the flesh helped take his mind off the past. "Living in the past doesn't help anyone. Myself or them. Just gotta keep focused on the present now."
"And the future," she nodded, bent on steering the conversation in a different direction. "When I was young this place was little more than a sprawling junkyard. Just another settlement of wasters the world didn't need to care about. Somewhere we got lucky, sure, but it's not about luck anymore. Us, the pilots, we aren't just a shield for New Anchorage, we're its legs now, and its progress depends as much on us as it does anyone sitting in an office. Maybe even more."
"Well, i'll do my part to support New Anchorage, both in protecting and helping it grow. I'm not gonna watch another town get eaten up by raiders or the corporations." Alan tried to smile at Eli. "Nothin's gonna drag me away from my job here." He lied.
And she seemed to believe him, though it would have been evidently too much to expect a smile in return. "It is comforting to hear that. Not just for me, but the people you're protecting will appreciate it as well. Perhaps you should give yourself more credit, with your attitude, you'll be welcome in these streets like anyone else."
"Let's hope so then. I'm always happy to have a change of pace when it comes to folks being nice to me."
Member
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Chronic,
Fading Memory,
Lemons,
Noctis,
MrSkimobile,
Cao the Exiled,
Carlyle,
Ladypug,
Theyra
