Storm and Fire Chapter 11

By far the longest chapter I have written at three and a half pages on Word. This is the first chapter of Part Two. Enjoy!

Part Two:
Chapter Eleven:
Wenatchee
Paul looked over the hill in shock with the others. The city was glowing. It wasn’t a dim, orange fire glow, it was bright light! Even in the dark of night. It really was electricity! And the city, it stretched in all directions! Houses going up and down, reaching to border of a river… that’s the Columbia! The mile-wide Columbia River! There were even house on the other side.
And the buildings were so big! Not the giant skyscrapers of the former city of Seattle, but they were big. Eight stories tall, some of them! Some windows glowing, some windows dark! It was like stars on the ground! Real electricity. There were advertisements on buildings, people walking pets down the streets, the streets themselves in perfect condition. Everyone around him was in awe; their mouths hung open. It was a complete shock to everyone, no matter if they were born before or after the war. The guide was smiling an exhausted but happy smile. “I do this job just to see this moment,” he said.
Everyone in the group walked quickly toward the town. They already were passing a few houses when they crossed the Wenatchee River by bridge and entered the main town. The bridge was in excellent condition. Even this late there were shops open. They danced around on the clean, paved streets, and stared at the buildings. It was civilization again!
The guide led them through town, past people just walking down the street. Night wasn’t really night when there was electricity. People stared at their torn and muddy clothes, giant packs and uncombed hair. Paul felt a bit ridiculous. For him, fashion hadn’t been around for nearly 30 years. Mostly, it was have practical clothing or die. It didn’t look like these people walking by knew that.
The guide let them walk around town for a while and meet with him an hour later. Paul and Silvia went off to some of the shops. It seemed like gold was a perfectly acceptable currency, which made Paul glad. Currency that was useless would not get very far for buying. Paul decided to buy some clothes, and Silvia, even more irritated at the looks than he was, agreed. They found a good clothes store. Paul thought the clothing was useless and would not let one survive for very long, but it looked interesting so he bought it and changed into them at a changing room in the back of the store. His hair was still a problem, but he ignored that for the time being. Silvia managed to find city clothes to and they set off to look for other shops. They found a bakery and ate the best dinner they had in a while there, though it was so expensive they used up most of their money. It was hard to get used to the bright lights and smooth floor everywhere, but Paul’s eyes adjusted soon enough. He looked at a clock – “Strange,” he thought, “No pendulum!” – and saw it was time to go back to the guide.
The guide took them to a large park near the center of the town. There were large stone buildings in it, one of them looking like a capital building. Paul asked the guide about that.
“Oh, yes, that is the Wenatchee Senate building. The senators from the surrounding towns come here to vote on new laws. You were born before the war, weren’t you? You should know how it works.”
“Wenatchee has its own government? What?!”
“You didn’t know? That’s the only way to keep order around here. We’re not doing that good a job of it though; you saw how lawless Sultan was!”
“Its own government? How does that work?”
“After news came that Seattle was bombed, we decided to organize a strong town council to help protect the people until the federal government restored order. But when the Chinese army destroyed the federal government and most other cities disappeared, we decided that it was best to make the town council into a permanent government, for most of the surrounding area. We call this the Democratic Republic of Wenatchee.”
“How come there was this advanced a civilization and I didn’t know about it?!” Paul shouted, annoyed
“Over across the mountains where you are from, and further east from here, there are large bandit organizations. If we let anyone know about our town then the bandits would soon find out and pillage the entire around here. That’s why there is such a high guard on Sultan.”
“Amazing…” said Paul. He was getting more and more interested as he learned more. He wondered how he could live in a town like this. He didn’t know much to let him survive in this town. Hunting would not work as well here; much of the area around was farms. He vaguely remembered getting good grades in school up until eighth grade when the war started and most schools were shut down. He was fairly good at math and science, but his memory was rusty from not doing either for twenty eight years.
He mentioned this to Silvia but she was yawning. She nodded sleepily. He doubted she even knew what he said. The group was following a path up to a large white building that looked to be an inn, a very big inn. A hotel? The guide led them up the steps into the lobby. Paul’s eyes hurt. Too much light! It was night, after all. How could one get used to all this bright light after walking through the dark? Did there really need to be that much light?
“People get three days free in this hotel per month,” said the guide, “I’ll give you a slip with your room number on it. Please enjoy your stay.”
Paul looked at the slip with half closed eyes. It was nearly twelve. He started walking up several flights of stairs. His eyes drooped and he tripped on the stairs several times. His arms hung at his sides. He was tired. He walked up to his room and tried opening the door. It wouldn’t budge. “Locked?” he thought. There was a key to the door attached to the piece of paper Paul was holding, though he didn’t find it for a few minutes. He twisted the key in the lock and tried to walk in. He hadn’t successfully opened the door, and crashed into it. He tried again and was able to walk in. The room smelled a bit musty, but better than most inns he had been at. There was even furniture. He thought it seemed a bit excess for being free. He dropped on the bed, slipped off, but fell asleep anyway.
The next morning he got up and stretched. Silvia seemed to have found her way to the room to but had fallen asleep in the doorway. He thought it would be best to let her sleep more. Looking out the window, he could see the fast expanse of the town clearly, and saw the Columbia River with the Wenatchee River flowing into it. Wenatchee had crept over the rivers and now there were building on the opposite banks. Beyond the river were dry, orange, dusty hills that had a few shrubs here and there. The hills were split by the Columbia River running through them. The sun shone high above them. He thought it odd that he had slept this late. The hotel blinds probably blocked the light.
Silvia began to twitch. Paul looked over at her. She mumbled, “Why am I here…?” He opened the door and dragged her out of the way. It slammed shut. She woke up.
“Ow… my sides hurt…”
“You fell asleep in the door way.”
“Oh.”
She walked up to the window and looked out at the view. “That’s a good view, isn’t it? We’re up high in this hotel.”
“Yeah, I noticed that too.”
“Are you ready to have breakfast?” she asked.
“Yeah. Should we try to find work today?”
She thought about it. “Sure, I guess. There’s probably someone in the town with work to be done. Look at the town,” she waved her arm at the expanse of buildings out the window, “I’m sure there’s something.”
“I might like a job with the guards. Patrolling the border areas would be helpful.”
“Yeah, but did you see that place? You’d rather work in Sultan than here?”
Paul shrugged. “I don’t know.”
They left the room and locked the door. “I don’t see what the big deal is. It’s easy to get free rooms anyway. Why lock them?” Paul complained. They found this inn offered more than a few vegetables for breakfast. The breakfast was not only free, but it looked delicious. Pork and eggs from the nearby farms, apples, and bread! Paul and Silvia hadn’t had bread in years. Western Washington isn’t known for having a large wheat production. Paul savored the taste of the bread while Silvia ravenously ate it in a few bites. Paul stared at her like eating such a delicacy so quickly was a waste but she ignored him.
With breakfast gone, Paul and Silvia set out to find jobs. Their guide told them that there would be plenty of jobs in town, and no one he had taken here before had much trouble finding one. “Let’s look separately,” said Paul, “We might have better luck.” They wished each other luck in the job hunting. Paul set off toward the main street, Route 2. Silvia decided to look to see if there were any government jobs near Wenatchee.
Silvia walked toward the main government buildings. She thought that a government job would be fun. The government employment building was across the government park from the inn. It was a large building and was the center of all government hiring and training. Even with the small region the Dem. Rep. of Wenatchee held, the government still had over 100,000 people in the workforce. Silvia wanted to join the guards. There were some openings for jobs right across the river. The guards were the only thing the Dem. Rep. of Wenatchee had that resembled an army. There was no conventional army; anything like that made it clear there was a civilization. The DRW wanted to keep its existence hidden. Silvia liked that kind of job.
She walked through the door of the employment building and up to the registration desk. The room was large and had wide windows that let in a lot of light. There was comfortable-looking furniture in the room. The carpet was a plain grey color. At the front of the room was the registration desk, behind which was the only other door. Only two other people were in the room, one was a woman behind the desk and the other was sitting in a comfortable-looking chair, reading a book.
“I’d like a job,” Silvia said.
“Yes?” said the woman, “What job?”
“I’d like a job as a guard here in Wenatchee.”
“Very well. Sit down; we’ll call for you in a minute. What was your name?”
“Silvia.”
“Alright. Sit down; it should only be a few minutes.”
Silvia sat down in a comfortable-looking chair, taking a glance at the other person. He was dressed in a suit, and had a red tie. He had short black hair and grey glasses. He looked like a business, more likely to be in the Senate building than getting a job with the government. At least he had something to do.
Since she had nothing to do, she just thought. What would a job as a guard be like? Would it be anything like her job as a bandit, with fighting and death commonplace? Their guide did not seem like the kind of person who would have that kind of job. Maybe all guards were different. She certainly did not want to walk back and forth between Sultan and Wenatchee with a bunch of people following her, not matter how happy they were at the end. But she didn’t want to kill hundreds of people either.
This was the first day she would be away from Paul for a few months, and with her job probably even longer. He was a nice person, though was a bit too serious and conceited. He thought too much about his goals to do anything else. He was kind to people, but just hard to talk to. She hoped he would find a good job.
“Nathan, please come to room 127 for your interview. Silvia, please come to room 101 for your interview.”
Silvia got up and saw the book-reader get up as well. She went through the now opened door behind the registration desk. The book-reader followed. On the other side was a hallway with rooms starting from one. She walked down the hallway until she got to 101. She knocked on the door. She was nervous. She hoped they wouldn’t inquire too much about her past. He heart was beating faster.
“Come in.”
The room was very plain, with white tile floor and smooth walls. In the room there was a plain table. Behind the table there was a plain looking man, her interview. He had a sheet of paper before him.
“Please, take a seat.”
She sat down. The chair was uncomfortable. She could hear her heart beating louder. The room was too warm, or maybe it was only her. The interview seemed to not notice any of this. He only sat there with a blank look and a piece of paper in his hand.
“Can you tell me why you want to become a guard?”