Deadman

The next morning we officially crossed into the deadzone that made up the Cut. I shut off my geiger counter, and enjoyed the soft warmth as the radiation of it suffused my entire body. There was something familiar about the particular feel of these rads. Passing into them caused a flood of memories, sights, sounds, smells, and tastes to come to mind. I remember being brought here by Undertakers. Being fed the first full meal of my life, and even being given seconds. The discomfort I felt from sleeping in a bed instead of on the hard ground for the first time. Having people look at me with concern instead of contempt. Pott’s field didn’t demand its people’s loyalty and respect, it earned it. Every action taken by the people of Pott’s was to the betterment of deadmen and their place in the wastes. Sure, there were differences in how the methods of help were chosen, but I’d never seen a group of humans get along like the deadmen of Pott’s did.

In spite of all of that, I still didn’t feel entirely comfortable there. I’d tried to fit in, to blend in and be a part of the city of the dead, but eventually I realized I’d rather be alone than spend all my time trying to get along with people. The concerned looks I’d seen when I first arrived, eventually turned fearful. It didn’t help that I was familiar with the wastes, familiar with violence, while the rest of them, for the most part been taken to Pott’s as children or babies and simply never left. They didn’t know how bad things could be out in the wasteland, and what they heard of it certainly didn’t encourage them to find out. All of that worked mixed together into the discomfort I felt when I lived there. I just couldn’t stay still in a place with no teeth, afraid of the outside. I needed a fight, a struggle.

Truth was I was too old when I was brought into Pott’s, and I’d brought a piece of the wastes with me. The peace of the dead just wasn’t something I could deal with. At least as a Marshall, and with Leah and the Remnants, maybe I was the right person to make the world a little better for Deadmen in my own way..

By midday, we were deep into the deadzone, and Pott’s was coming into view. The average waster might think that the largest cities in the wastes are places like Fette, or House-ton, but that was just because Pott’s was a place they would never visit. Hundreds of domes of orange, with windowed walls rose in the distance and spread far in every direction. As we got closer, designs that had been painted across them, or placed into the walls using shards of colored glass came into view. Desert plants thrived outside of them and I could see the shapes of gardeners and farmers working in the small fields around them. A short distance ahead of us an undertaker caravan was leaving. Nico and I gave them a nod as we passed by before we reached the edge of Pott’s.

Fellow deadmen smiled and said hello, though it was all tinged with a bit of fear and concern at the edges of their eyes, their smiles. Nico and I returned their gesture with nods and tips of our hats. I watched as a large ratcat dragged a massive cockroach into an alley to its hairless kittens that dug into its carapace with glee. The deadmen in the city were dressed primarily in colorful versions of the wraps worn by the undertakers. There were rich reds, blues, and yellows all around us.

Pott’s was a city of more than three thousand, founded by Hades Johnson. I’d been taught about it in the orphanage. He basically started with a single shack, a small farm, and a desire to keep his fellow deadmen safe. He changed his name, and scoured the wastes for anyone who would join him, risking his life, as deadmen were universally shot on sight at the time. He wrapped himself in the mystique of the old world, and used it to manipulate average wasters. When he died he’d managed to create a small town of around sixty of us, and from then Pott’s only grew, until it became the irradiated jewel of the wastes that it now was.

Before we moved any deeper into the city, I stopped. “I have a delivery for the orphanage. Do you mind if we drop by there first?”

Nico shook her head. “It’s fine. We’ll need to call Mama to the honored dead meeting anyway.”

From there we made our way to the center of the city. The orphanage was there to keep it safe, and it also let the young deadmen meet many of the other deadmen that lived in the city and get to know them. Pott’s was in a lot of ways like a massive extended family. No one’s actual parents lived there, so the community took on that role, and the person who started that process, and was in charge of the orphanage was Mama.

I saw her standing outside in a small playground while little deadmen played all around her. She was sewing what looked like a blanket and two toddlers were watching her hands, fascinated by what she was doing. She was old, I wasn’t sure of how old as it’s hard to tell with Deadmen, but I knew she’d known Hades Johnson when she was just a girl. She looked up at us when we approached and regarded Nico and I with her warm yellow eyes.

“Well if it isn’t my prodigal son and daughter,” she stood, carefully placing her knitting needles down and proceeded to hug each of us. Nico made an uncomfortable expression as she did so, and I was certain my own was the same. I’d never much cared for physical displays of affection.

“Hello Mama. I just dropped by because I have a delivery. I also figured I better let one of the Honored Dead know I’m here for whatever reckoning is planned.”

“A delivery? I don’t think I’ve ever gotten such a thing.”

I reached into my pack and pulled out the small stack of letters the Khan’s wife had given me. “These are from the Khan’s wives. They’re letters for the children they gave to the undertakers.”

I saw a brief change in Mama’s expression from warmth to concern, but it quickly corrected. She reached out and took the letters before making them disappear into the folds of her yellow robe. “Thank you dear. I’ll take care of them.”

I nodded. “Any chance you can tell me what to expect when I meet with you and the rest of the Honored Dead?”

She smiled. “You’ll hear no complaints about your actions from me dear. I’ve always said there’s value in making the people that hurt deadmen bleed, especially those that hurt the children,” she said the words with the same warmth she said everything else. It would’ve been off-putting, if I hadn’t heard similar sentiments from her before.

“What about the rest of the Honoured?” I asked.

She scratched at her chin a bit. “Julian is an enigma as always. Solomon wants you exiled or at least threatened with it. His toady Jim is of course in full agreement. Kit is with me, though she’s waiting to get more information from you before we settle on anything.”

I scratched at my teeth. I didn’t do politics well. I’d just have to lay out everything that happened and go from there. They couldn’t threaten me with any serious consequences of course. Exile was the worst they’d do, and I’d practically already done that to myself. It was a big deal for others though. Deadmen that have been exiled were not just never allowed to return to Pott’s, other deadmen were also forbidden from interacting with them. At least if they exiled me I wouldn’t need to worry about losing any more coffee to Nico and Deux.

“I’ll summon the rest of the council. We should be assembled within the hour.”

“Okay.” I reached in my pack for the bundle of notes, maps, and other information I’d taken from my recent trips which I handed to her. “This is all the information I have from what I’ve been doing. Hopefully it’ll help make sense of things for you.”

She nodded and shuffled slowly away, using a well worn cane for support.

We walked out, stepping over a few small children, and headed for a small patch of restaurants nearby to get something to eat while we waited for the council to get together. We each ordered some cactus hooch and I was extremely happy to find that a single glass got me more buzzed than any of the booze I’d gotten from wasters recently. I suddenly got a notification,

Terrible work postman! You’ve failed to perform the primary goal of your job 'Delivery’! You receive no patriot points! Failure to do your job is a weakness of character!

I read the notification twice. I’d only received that kind of message a couple times before. Both were when my cargo had been completely destroyed.

Nico finished her drink and looked up at me. “What’s wrong?”

I explained the message.

She nodded. “Mama destroyed the letters.”

“What?”

“What’s her job Donovan?”

“Raising the kids that the undertakers bring?”

“Yeah, that’s part of it. The other part is to make everyone feel like part of the same family. Hard to do that when you’ve still got a connection to your old family.”

I slid a hand down my face and slammed the rest of my drink. I was disappointed to hear her explanation, but it made sense. Hell, the kids would never know they didn’t get anything anyway. Pott’s always had a few darker cracks running along its foundation. Most Deadmen didn’t see them, but I’d found more than my fair share, and I was sure Nico had too.