The Disposable Enquiry [Round 1: Kyyhkynen]

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SpoilerI was at first having trouble writing this so I worked on the layout of the city and how Sanctuary worked. The first picture is more sort of the schematics for how it would have looked if completed. The second is more of a plan of how it actually is. Utopia was what the city was originally going to be called.

The power structure aboard Sanctuary could if you were feeling generous, be called shambolic. Technically speaking the acting captain was a man called Damien Abcroft. He had worked as a designer for the company that built the zeppelin back before the plague struck and he’d been put in charge simply because he had the most working knowledge of how to fly the damn thing.

In terms of making decisions like where to go next, when to make supply runs, whether to let other survivors on board or not the decisions rested on the shoulders of a man called White. It was an assumed name, as many were nowadays; one might guess that this was a fad derived from zombie apocalypse movies and that is partially true. Some did hop onto the bandwagon and pick new names for the hell of it, but White claims that he did so because he didn’t want to think about his life before the plague any more; new name, new person.

In the labs the unquestionable man in charge… well… woman in charge… was Doctor Hikaru Matsuo. Prior to being picked up she had been safe in an air-tight bunker, analysing the wolves and working on a vaccine. She had been the last one left and nobody had liked to ask what had happened to the other scientists.

Though with all of that said neither Acting Captain Damien Abcroft, White nor Doctor Matsuo were really integral to the operation of Sanctuary. The only man they couldn’t afford to lose was Morgan Wells. Before the plague he’d been an engineer and he still was he would suppose. Morgan’s technical know-how and tireless efforts were what really kept Sanctuary afloat.

It was therefore somewhat troubling that at the time Sanctuary had been snatched away to participate in the Disposable Enquiry, Morgan had not been on board. He had been part of a salvage team that had gone to search a scrap-yard for usable parts.

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Most of the Entertainment District had actually been constructed at the time of the plague, even if it the vast bulk of it had not been furnished. Valhalla was not one of those. It was still clearly recognisable as a swanky casino. There was of course the paraphernalia of casinos; the roulette wheels, craps tables, slot machines and piles of brightly coloured plastic chips. There were ornate decorations including decorative statues of the entire Norse pantheon. Most of the statues had been covered up with dust sheets, only Loki was left unveiled and only because Maat, the guy who had claimed the casino for his own, had thought it amusing.

Of course most of the casino was unused. Nobody particularly wanted to gamble on roulette or play the slots. There was a table set up for card games, and this was surrounded by casually discarded empty bottles of alcohol. Cards lay face down on the table with a massive bundle of real cash, valueless in this post-apocalyptic world, heaped in the centre. Here a group of survivors had been sat around the table not five minutes ago.

When Sanctuary had been addressed by the Inquirer it had been heard all the way through the zeppelin from hardened survivors eager to have some fun, to families that they had picked up out of sympathy.

The game of poker that White had been competing in had been implicitly abandoned the moment that robotic voice engulfed the city. They’d abandoned the casino out into the streets of Sanctuary. Of course they still couldn’t see anything from in here, but the sight of other people staggering out of buildings was at least semi-reassuring. Once it had stopped there was a long moment of silence throughout the street and then everyone a clamouring of voices and opinions all directed towards White as though he would have the answers to their questions.

White was of course just as blindsided as anyone, with the added bonus of knowing that there was the possibility that Morgan wasn’t on board. He was less concerned about the safety of the zeppelin, he was pretty sure that wasn’t in any immediate peril, than he was for the safety of the surface team. The daytime wasn’t so bad, but in a couple of hours it would be night and the wolves love the night. Without the shelter of Sanctuary Morgan wouldn’t survive. The voice had been quite clear. They would leave when one of the people it had described was dead. They needed to make this happen as soon as possible.

Of course, White’s thoughts were a little more interrupted than this, having to deal with a crowd of people all voicing their opinions at once. He appealed for calm, but found it not forthcoming. “Something is going on that is beyond my knowledge. I need to go and have a talk with the Captain to make sure what the… voice… claimed is happening is really happening.”

Pitch stood out from the crowd, having voluntarily gotten infected with the plague. He was tall, muscular and covered in hair. He would have preferred to go as Fang since his being infected, but nobody really seemed inclined to call him that. As White made to leave Pitch grabbed him, and slammed him against a wall.

“What is this?” Pitch demanded. White protested his innocence as the crowd stared. “This is your doing!” Pitch yelled, as half of the crowd attempted to separate the two men. “If I was in charge I never would have let this happen!”

Pulled apart by the crowd the rivals stared at one another. White broke the stare, turning away and rubbing at his shoulder. “I will find out what is going on and respond accordingly.” He said. Immediately White set off towards the Bridge, which doubled as a makeshift quarters for the Acting Captain.

The problem with Sanctuary was that it was technically speaking not finished. Large patches of land in the Financial District and all the way through the Farms were missing. It was massively disconcerting and gave even the boldest of survivors vertigo to look down and see the world so far below them. More pertinently the tramlines that were intended to be the primary mode of transportation throughout the city were never completed. That is why reaching the power plant was a couple of days journey, and why the Acting Captain had set up a quarters at the helm.

Had he been on foot it would have taken White the best part of an hour to navigate his way through the Entertainment District. However he had one of the few vehicles on board, a golf buggy salvaged from a golf course they’d passed over a month or so ago. While cars would have been quicker and easier to get hold of there simply wasn’t room for them in the narrow streets.

White headed towards the bridge, dimly aware that the situation was already well out of his control.

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Pitch watched their ‘fearless leader’ as he left. He’d never got along with the guy, disagreeing with the way he did things, and his attitude about everything. He knew he could do better and he’d made it his personal mission to blame every single bad thing that had happened on White. He wanted to be in charge and this, whatever it was that was going on, was the perfect opportunity to take charge.

“White wants us to sit around with our tails between our legs!” he exclaimed to the still gathered crowd. “He wants us to do nothing while we are in potentially dire peril? Fuck that! I say we go down to the surface and see for ourselves what’s going on!” This was met with a general cheer of approval from the gathered crowd. The possibility of being back on the surface of a world without wolves was too good to pass up. The citizens of Sanctuary, one group of them at least, marched towards the Docks, and to the battle that lay beyond.