THE BUG EATERS

Lamplight’s newly created flag was flying high over the old mayoral building. It was white with three thick stripes, red, orange, and yellow, placed atop one another and then curved like a rainbow. They were chosen for the colors of the desert, while their shape represented hope. Rayli had put together several designs and then chosen this one based on feedback from the locals at The Cockroach.

Faina had already come to associate the flag with something else. The yellow was the same as Rayli had used on The Liberator, and the image of the mech standing in front of the sunset was burned into her mind. Flag ideas intentionally centering the mech had been floated, but were always vetoed in favor of the ‘non-violent’ designs. Perhaps there was no such thing.

It was late and she was walking through the hallway connecting the various bedrooms. They were generally housing three or four people to a room, with Tulio sharing his with Kravitz and some recently hired mercenaries. Faina, meanwhile, was sharing with Rayli, which made for a nice change from sharing a room in the Lazyday Hostel with two men, but she still wasn’t used to it. Even having a nice mattress felt odd and, surprisingly, made it more difficult for her to get any sleep. She needed fresh air and a mental reset.

Airam had a room all to himself which marked out his status as leader in a way that he was initially apologetic about but had since embraced. It was adjacent to the old mayor’s office in the front-center of the building. The office had wide windows that gave him a panoramic view of Lamplight. They would spend hours there together, planning the movements of the LDF and The Liberator. She was thankful that he was taking things seriously and that at least some of what they were doing was well thought out and prepared for.

She headed down the stairs. On the ground floor there was a kitchen and dining room that provided food to everyone working in the building, a growing armory, several rooms for conferencing, and the radio room. The radio room was perhaps the most important one in the building. Without it, they wouldn’t be able to say they were holding territory at all. They wouldn’t have a good sense of what was going on out in the desert, and they wouldn’t even have solid intel on what was happening around town.

As it was, if there were any trouble or murmurings of trouble in Lamplight or the surrounding area, the radio guys would hear about it right away and report the important information back to Airam. There was at least one person staffing the room at any given time, so there would be someone there even now. They listened to reports of gunfire, fistfights, coal seam fires, sandstorms, and mysterious strangers, then sorted through it all for what was actionable.

Faina strode across the black and white marble tiles of the foyer and pushed open the building’s heavy double doors. There were armed guards on either side of the entrance and she exchanged nods with one of them as she stepped out. His face was covered with a balaclava, so she couldn’t tell if she knew him or not. One of the mercs, maybe, or one of the boys from Copper Street who’d signed up in the last week. He was already wearing some of the gear that was acquired during the FOB raid. Everything was moving so fast.

Tulio was outside and he turned around to face her, leaning back against the concrete balustrade that walled off the patio in front of the building. He was only dimly lit by one of the building’s fluorescent wall lamps and the smoke from his cigarette trailed behind him and up past his shoulder like the strings of a marionette. He smiled at her, but he looked pensive.

“Hey, Tulio. How are you doing?” asked Faina, gently, but having to speak over the hum of the lamps.

“The same as always,” he shrugged.

Faina was wearing a white tank top and some baggy pajama pants, but Tulio was still dressed like he was ready for a fight. While Faina had continued wearing the clothes they used as scavengers, mostly practical civilian clothing like cargo pants and shawls, Tulio had begun to dress himself up like a soldier. He had even shined his boots.

“You were impressive today. I haven’t seen anyone fight like that before. It scared me a little bit.”

“Thanks. It’s egotistical to say it out loud, I know, but I’m good at fighting. I can keep a level-head during combat. I can make snap decisions. That’s the key, I think.”

“It didn’t really look like a level-head, it looked more like you were enjoying it,” Faina probed.

“I might have been. I don’t think that’s terrible. I was still efficient.”

“I just want to make sure that you’re okay.”

“Sure. I’m fine,” Tulio replied, bluntly.

“You’re not still feeling bad about Jazael? Or…” she paused. “You don’t feel guilty about what happened that day, when you had to shoot that kid?”

“No, not really. Things like that just happen sometimes.”

“But it was our fault. It’s in my nightmares. I feel like we’re bad, broken people.”

“Well, we’re fixing everything, right? We’re building a better world or whatever. I don’t buy everything that Airam says, but we can make people less desperate. That’s what kills us, the desperation. Already seeing fewer drunks and junkies.”

“We still fucked up and got four people killed, Tulio,” Faina said.

“We’ve both killed more since then; you didn’t complain. The DNA soldiers don’t seem to weigh on your mind at all.”

“That’s not what I’m asking you about right now.”

“I’m not saying that it was good, I’m saying that we have to keep moving forward regardless. Everyone makes mistakes, does things that are terrible, and not all of it can be fixed. We keep going,” Tulio insisted.

“I’ve been throwing myself into this project as much as I can, but in a way it’s just a coping mechanism. I was feeling the need to distract myself from our problems and make myself believe that I was making a positive difference, but all of this has its issues too. I’ve been wondering if this is actually what Jazael would want for us.”

“What Jazael would want?” he raised an eyebrow. “Elaborate on that.”

“I mean, he hated all of this faction stuff. We’re establishing ourselves as one now, becoming passengers for this big militarized project, The Lamplight Defence Front. We don’t have the resources and reach of the other factions, but even so.”

“It’s a faction for scavengers by scavengers. This is good, it means we can stand up for ourselves. He hated that we were Daybreak’s lowest of the low. The LDF lets us change that.”

“I suppose so. It sounds pretty good when you put it like that.”

“And it can be even better once Airam does what some of us keep telling him to. We need to lay down the law here and start making some real money. If we’re protecting these people, they should pay us. We have to start taxing trade. It would let us do a lot more.”

“See, that’s the thing, it’s going too far. We will end up replicating the problems of other factions if we start propping up the same structures that they use to control people,” Faina said.

“We’ve got to make money somehow, both the LDF and us personally. It will fund staff, training, and equipment. It will also fund us getting to live some pretty good lives. We can get our own houses, luxuries, and people to do all the shit we don’t want to do anymore. Jazael always wanted us to live well,” Tulio replied, unmoved.

“I think he mostly just wanted us to get out of here and live away from all of the fighting. Not luxury, just peace, maybe sipping piña coladas on a beach somewhere. I’ve never even seen a beach,” Faina said wistfully.

“It’s just more sand, isn’t it? Who cares?” Tulio gave a half-smile.

“Very funny.”

“You know, I’m hearing you. If you want to go, we can still make that happen. It’ll just take a few more months of working for Airam and we can guarantee a safe and comfortable exit.”

“And you’ll come too?”

“No, I’ve decided that I want to stay here in Lamplight. I think this is right for me, but I do want what’s right for you too. If it will make a difference, I’ll let you use some of my half of the group savings.”

“I worry,” Faina said.

“About what?”

“That you’ll…” Faina struggled to find the right words, “become someone different.”

“Maybe I will. I’m already a different person from who I was a month or even a week ago. We always change and, for better or worse, there’s no going back. I know I’ve done bad things. I know I’m a harder person than I was once upon a time. It is what it is.”

“You’re not wrong in principle but I still feel like there’s a whole side of things you’re just not seeing here.”

“Just relax, okay? That's all we can do.”

Faina tried her best. She exhaled and let her shoulders drop. The conscious effort required for it didn’t totally defeat the point, even if it did make it dampen it. She felt a bit better right away.

Tulio took one last drag from his cigarette and then put it out on the banister, tossing it away into the darkness. He rubbed one of his eyes and Faina noticed there were bruises on his knuckles forming large red rings. She thought about how much they must hurt.

“The night is beautiful,” Faina said.

“What?” Tulio looked up at the sky as though he hadn't realized quite how late it was until just now. “Yeah, it is.”

She thought back to an earlier time, before the flag waving above them. She, Jazael, and Tulio had trekked to a recently abandoned factory on the edge of PLM territory. To avoid Smoke Desert’s radlands, they had taken an indirect route that made camping out in the desert a necessity. Jazael had been complaining about something, she wished she could remember, when she revealed some candied fruit that she had been keeping hidden to surprise her team with. It was a small and frivolous thing, but they, even Tulio, had been overjoyed like small children.

“The stars seem so bright.”