Chapter 2 -- Only A Small Town

There's nothing green about Green Meadows. There's no meadows, either.

Ha. I know it's in poor taste to laugh at your own jokes, but I'm just so witty sometimes. Besides, it helps with my irritation. I've been walking for hours, the sun beating down mercilessly on my back. I look disapprovingly at my boots, all dusty from the endless road, and not a girl's tongue in sight to clean them...

But soon. This is the final hill to crest before I'm finally at my destination, such as it is.

Green Meadows is just a town, though even that term feels overly generous for the kind of ramshackle agglomeration of makeshift buildings that cling desperately to the barren earth here. I think of it more as a hole, really. A place dug out from the ground, for fleeing animals to hide in, to find safety in. Perhaps a colony of termites, burrowing into dead wood.

I pause for a moment, surveying the town from my vantage point. It's not much to look at - a haphazard sprawl of structures that seem to have been cobbled together from whatever materials were at hand. Corrugated metal, splintered wood, even the occasional tarp fluttering in the hot breeze. A far cry from the cities, and even they haven't fully recovered yet. For every new sleek building the New Order builds up, there's two apartment buildings that are still bombed out. But even that looks like a five-star hotel, compared to this shithole.

But then, that's rather the point, isn't it? This isn't a place for the loyal citizens of the regime. This is a hideout, a bolt-hole, a last refuge for the desperate and the hunted. For rebels and dissidents.

For my prey.

The only reason the New Order maintains the fiction that it doesn't know about this place's existence is that it allows them to keep a close eye on potential dissidents, in a place they already know to look at. Or so the warden told me once. I think it's equally likely that he's requested the troops to reduce the place a while ago, and his superiors denied his request.

Not even the most powerful of men can be everywhere all at once.

I study the place further. The town is south of me, and it's built flush along a modest river that runs to the east. There's some vegetation growing on that side, but the western side is barren.

I adjust the pack on my shoulders and start down the hill, my boots kicking up small clouds of dust with each step. I let my mind wander, considering my approach.

I could try to sneak in, of course. Scout out the town's perimeter, find out the nearest patch of woodland and hide until darkness falls. But that doesn't feel like the soundest approach for a place like this, where everyone's always looking over their shoulder. If I set off any alarms, my quarry would scatter like roaches when the light is switched on.

No, better to walk in bold as brass. Just another weary traveler seeking shelter, or perhaps something as simple as a drink at the local bar. After all...

I'm just a woman in need for protection, aren't I?

My feet ache inside my boots, and I wipe away sweat from my forehead with the back of my hand. I wish I had a vehicle, and that's not something I say often. Yes, the mobility is nice, and you can carry more women back in a single trip. But vehicles also make your approaches more predictable, easier to track.

Then again, I'm not going in stealthy, and I'm just supposed to find the cell and let the men do the rest, so maybe I really should have asked the warden for a truck, or something.

But even with his permission, if I'd gone to the re-education center's motor pool and tried to requisition a vehicle, the guards there would surely have taken their... payment... upfront. Motor pool guards are infamous. They might have taken my food -- their rations are notoriously shit -- or they might have bent me over the hood of a car and taken turns with me. Likely both.

On second thought, I'm better off walking.

When I reach the bottom of the hill, a battered wooden sign welcomes me to Green Meadows. It lends a quaint, small-town charm to a place that is anything but. Or it would, if not for the peculiar coat of arms chosen to represent the town.

It's a crude spray-canned depiction of a woman in a rebel's outfit and combat boots, one fist raised in the air with a broken chain dangling from the wrist. She's stepping on the neck of a man in the uniform of the re-education centers. The letters below, in a flowing script, read:

"FREEDOM FOR ALL WOMEN."

How cute.

I have to admit, there's a certain dumb audacity to it that I can't help but admire, even as it makes me want to roll my eyes. It's like a chihuahua yapping at a doberman - you have to give it points for sheer gumption, even if it's ultimately futile.

I step closer, examining the details. The lines are rough and uneven, clearly done in haste, but there's an undeniable energy to the image. The rebel woman's eyes blaze with righteous fury, her teeth bared in a snarl of defiance. The guard beneath her boot looks suitably cowed.

It's a powerful image, for sure. Defiance in the face of overwhelming odds. A promise of retribution, of tables turned and oppressors brought low.

Too bad it's complete bullshit. Too bad spray cans don't win wars.

I've seen what little is left of the women that exit the re-education centers, and some day, the author of this coat of arms will get to find out first-hand.

As I creep closer and closer to Green Meadows, I run into an absolutely adorable sight. They have makeshift city walls! Sure, they're made of corrugated metal and they don't look too firmly planted in the ground either, but anything that helps you sleep better at night, I guess.

Every metal panel seems to bear some manner of graffiti or other, and most of it seems to be slogans. "The Future Is Female," and "The Day Of Reckoning Is Coming," and other similarly generic statements.

But one catches my eye. It says, in full caps, "COLLABORATORS, YOUR TIME WILL COME AS WELL."

How curious. I wonder if it's coincidence, or if rumour is already spreading that there's a woman hunting after her own kind. I trace the edges of the letters with my fingers, feeling the texture of the paint. The colors are still vibrant, the lines crisp and clean. It hasn't yet started to crack or peel.

This wasn't done months ago and then forgotten. It's recent.

Well. Good to know I have a fan!

I shake my head and tear my gaze away from the graffiti. Enough woolgathering. I have a job to do.

I stride past what seems to be a northern gate - in reality simply a gap through the metal wall, though it is guarded by two armed women -- and into the town. I'm doing my best to look wary but not too wary. I've dressed for the part - sturdy boots, practical pants, a simple shirt, a light coat to keep off the dust, a hat to shield my head from the sun.

I'm carrying a huge backpack, yes, but to an untrained eye it could simply be because I'm carrying my home on my back, rather than the tools of my trade. Nothing too flashy or attention-grabbing. I want to blend in, to look like just another drifter passing through.

The main street, if you can call it that, is little more than a dusty track flanked by ramshackle buildings. A bakery with empty display cases, a hardware store boasting a perpetual going-out-of-business sale, a barbershop with a handwritten note in the window: "Closed for the Foreseeable Future." Pretty much what you'd expect from a town like this.

More interesting to me is the configuration of twisty alleys created by the decentralized and haphazard nature of the town. My internal radar is sweeping back and forth in a methodical fashion, taking note of every landmark, every window, every narrowing alley and impassable dead end, committing the place's geography to memory.

A quick circuit of the town's periphery reveals that there's no gate on the eastern side, where the town is flanked by the river. Besides the gap I used myself, there's two more guarded points of exit: one is to the south, still on the main dirt road, and the other is to the west. Good to know.

There's an art to inconspicuous observation. To taking in all your surroundings without tipping off other people that that's what you're doing. To not seem like someone who's overly interested in the area, someone who might be trying to sabotage you or spy on you. To not seem like a threat.

Not many people seem to be around right now. There's a woman hurrying along with groceries, and a man with hollow eyes dragging a heavy black plastic bag behind him on the ground. An old bandstand sits derelict in the middle of what must have once been a small public park.

And there,nestled between a consignment shop and a pharmacy, is my destination. The neon sign buzzes and sputters, fighting a losing battle with the afternoon sunlight. It proclaims the establishment to be "Rudy's."

A bar. A dive, really, seedy and run down, the kind of place whose seedy charm comes from a long history of disreputable clientele.

Perfect.

I step inside, taking off my hat and coat and hanging both on the coat rack near the door. The patrons inside glance up at me, briefly, but the place is half full, and to them, I'm just another customer walking in.

I take in the scene. It's a claustrophobic cave of a place, with low ceilings and poorly spaced beams that created a warren of semi-enclosed drinking nooks. The mismatched tables and chairs must have probably been salvaged from wherever the owner could find some, or maybe stolen.

I move towards the bar, the wooden floorboards groaning in protest under my boots. A large man with a wrinkly face and walrus-like mustache -- presumably the eponymous Rudy -- stands behind the bar, polishing a glass with the sort of listless attention that suggests a state of perpetual tedium.

Rudy ambles over when he spots me, setting the glass down and wiping his hands on a dirty rag. "What'll it be?"

"Beer. Whatever's on tap."

He grunts, then turned to fiddle with a keg hidden behind the bar. I use the moment to survey the room again. Most of the patrons present are male, a typical mix of blue-collar types: one older man in a flannel shirt is drinking together with a guy in a leather jacket and a trucker cap. A pair of young men who looked like millworkers or roughnecks. A few women also dot the crowd, all wearing the same tight-lipped expressions.

Two women in particular catch my eye. They're huddled together sullenly around a table near the back wall. A shadowy corner of the bar to pick... mmh.

Rudy slides a tall glass of amber liquid in front of me. I produce a few crumpled bills from my pocket and make for a table.

I choose a quiet corner too, a seat that allows me to stay on the sidelines while having a perfect view of the bar and the entrance. I lift the glass to my lips, taking a slow, measured sip.

It's pretty bad, even as far as bad beers go. But I guess that's to be expected. I set the glass down gently, then drape myself over it, propping my head on one hand. Time to listen to the ambient chatter.

Most of it is useless to me: trivial town gossip, nostalgic mutterings about the way things used to be, the occasional gripe about taxes and the price of commodities. Oh, life was so much better before the war! Would you like an award for this incredible insight?

The world has changed so much, and yet human conversations have changed so little. People really are mostly just cattle waiting to be pointed in one direction, I suppose.

One of the millworker types makes an offhand comment about "those damned fascists," but it lacks conviction. Nothing seditious about it. Just a guy venting some frustration in the most generic direction he can.

I'm about to lose my patience when the man wearing flannel mentions, sorrowfully, that a captured woman was taken to a re-education centre recently.

"Poor thing," the man's drinking buddy says, the one with the leather jacket. "She'll be a different person when she comes out."

Flannel glances around the room cautiously before responding. "She won't be a person at all."

My ears perk up. I take another sip of the watery beer, and when I put down the glass, I slightly change the angle of my body, turning to better hear the conversation. Interesting. Mireia's capture is recent - too recent, I would have thought, for word to have already spread this far. But then again, bad news always seems to travel fast.

"That's an evil thing," Leather says, turning away from the table as if to spit on the ground, before seemingly reconsidering. "An evil thing to do to a person. Wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy."

Flannel nods solemnly. "Yeah..."

I seize the moment. Casually, as if making idle conversation, I turn to Flannel and Leather. "This the redhead? The girl you're talking about?"

They both startle slightly, clearly not expecting to be addressed. Leather eyes me warily, but Flannel seems more open. "Yeah," he says. "You heard the same rumor?"

"Sure have," I say. "And I've heard more besides..." I make sure to look all perturbed about it, too, twisting my face in the imitation of a sorrowful look. For some reason, that's one emotion that people always respond to. You make a face and they just eat it all up.

Idiots.

Their interest is obviously piqued. They both lean forward slightly, Leather's wariness momentarily forgotten. "What have you heard?"

I take another sip of my beer, letting the moment stretch out. Then I set the glass down with a sigh. "Well... it's just a rumor, but... scuttlebutt says she's been released."

A beat of silence. Then Leather frowns. "Released already? From a re-education center? That's not possible. Once they have you, you're... I mean, it takes time..."

Flannel's eyes widen. "You think maybe they speed up the technique? Maybe they do it faster now?"

It takes all of my commitment to my acting performance to not facepalm openly right now. You can take a horse to water, and all that. I was hoping to be a bit subtler than this, but I guess I'll have to spell the lie out clearly for everyone in the bar to get my intended meaning.

"Way I hear it, she was captured and brought to a re-education centre... but the day after, she was set free. You ask me, no one leaves a place like that so soon... unless they cut some kinda deal."

A ripple of unease goes through the bar. More people than just these two idiots are listening, now, and I let the silence stretch, so they have time to process the implications of what I've just said. I don't really care if they believe the lie or not. I just need them to doubt the truth.

"No way," a woman sitting alone at a table says. "No one would cut a deal with... with..."

I shrug, feigning nonchalance. "Hey, I'm just telling you what I heard. Apparently this redhead, she used to be some kind of big shot in the resistance. Had all sorts of intel. So the Regime offered her a deal - feed them information, help them take down the rebels from the inside, and she gets to keep her mind intact. Or somewhat intact."

I sit back, letting my words hang in the air. I can feel the mood in the bar shift, a palpable unease settling over the patrons. Conversations falter and die as people exchange nervous glances, suddenly eyeing their drinking companions with new suspicion. It's like I've poured a single drop of poison down a well, and I'm watching the drop spread through the clear water.

Beautiful.

There's also something wonderfully poetic about the fact that, after utterly destroying Mireia's life, I'm still finding further ways to screw with her. Not that she'll mind... by the time she gets out of there, she'll be closer to an animal than to a person. But hey, it amuses me, and that's all that matters, right?

But much more important than my enjoyment is the reason why I've voiced this lie to begin with. I study the patrons closely, watching for reactions, for any sign that my little rumor has hit a nerve.

Oh. The two women. Of course.

They've been conspicuously silent while I was talking, but now they're having a hushed and intense conversation. Their whispers are too low for me to make out from this distance, but I'm a bounty huntress. You don't get far in my line of work if you can't read people like they're an open book.

The slimy warden and his words flash back into my mind.

You promised perfection, Larissa.

Fucking weasel of a man. I breathe deep, bringing my anger back under control. A good predator is cool and collected when she hunts, and I'm the fucking best.

I focus on the two women again. The shorter one, a wiry girl with close-cropped dark hair, is gesticulating frantically now. God, if she's in the resistance, I can see why they're fucking losing, this complete lack of self-control on her part is almost funny to witness.

Wish you could see this, Mireia. Maybe you wouldn't have been so confident about the resistance if you could see what morons your comrades are.

The brunette's companion, a tall blonde with a scar running down her cheek, is shaking her head vehemently. They're arguing, that much is clear, and my little rumor seems to be the catalyst.

Interesting. Very interesting.

I keep my gaze on them, but not directly. I've perfected the art of watching without appearing to watch. It's all in the periphery, in the corner of the eye. People can feel a direct stare, but a sidelong glance? That slips right under the radar.

The argument seems to reach a crescendo. The short one slams her fist on the table, making their drinks jump. The blonde leans back, crossing her arms over her chest. A defensive posture. She's not happy with whatever her friend is proposing.

But the short one is insistent. She leans forward again, her expression intense, her words coming fast and furious. She's trying to convince her companion of something. Something urgent, by the looks of it.

Finally, after what seems like an eternity but is probably only a few minutes, the blonde relents. Her shoulders slump, and she gives a curt nod. They've reached an agreement, but it's clear she's not entirely happy about it.

They both stand abruptly, their chairs scraping against the wooden floor. The sound is loud in the subdued atmosphere of the bar, drawing a few curious glances. But the women pay no heed. They're already moving, weaving their way through the tables towards the exit.

As they pass by the bar, I catch a snippet of their conversation.

"...can't risk it. We have to go warn the others," the short one is saying.

The blonde's response is too low for me to hear, but her expression is grim.

And then they're gone, the door swinging shut behind them with a bang.

Bingo.

I allow myself a small, satisfied smile. It seems my little seed of doubt has found fertile ground. These women, they're part of the rebel cell. They have to be. And now, thanks to me, they're running scared.

Oh, I'm sure they'll be cautious. They'll take the long way back to their hideout, doubling back and weaving through alleys to throw off any potential tails. They might even split up, each taking a different route.

As if that's going to be enough to stop me.

I drain the last of my beer and stand, stretching languidly. I take my time leaving the bar, acting casual and unhurried. No need to draw attention to myself. The barkeep and other patrons barely spare me a glance as I saunter out the door. Just another drifter passing through.

Outside, the afternoon sun is dipping low now, and shadows lengthen. I scan my surroundings. The two women are nowhere to be seen, of course. They've already disappeared into the warren of alleys and side streets that make up this ramshackle town.

But that's fine. I didn't expect them to make it easy for me. In fact, I'm counting on them being cautious, paranoid even. It will only make my victory that much sweeter in the end. I briefly ponder which one I'd like to rape the most. The short one, for the size difference? Or the blonde, because of the implied reversal? I scoff to myself. Trust me to always look at the bright side in a serious situation.