10 AM District 0, Building 12 Bar & Diner [12]
The group had decided to split up and cover more ground in a ‘recon’ mission to get a better feel for ‘The Colony’ and what sort of opportunities BEAU might offer. The number one goal was to find a way to generate some fast cash so the newly formed collective could have some operating cash independent of the individual members’ pockets.
Joe Black stepped outside of “Building 12”, thinking again that it was a stupid thing to put on a sign. Standing on the dirt road outside the bar, Joe took a moment to really look at the building. His first impression was that a Shipping Container and a Shuttle Craft had mated and given birth to THIS … a 9-meter by 15-meter metal box with rounded corners and edges. It wasn’t even sitting on the ground; Joe could see a dark gap around the base hidden by giant plants. Joe could almost picture a Starship’s Cutter gently lowering the prefabricated building into place and then flying off. “Guess that’s one way to make a shell airtight”, he thought to himself.
Then Joe stared out across the Square, a vast open grassy tract in the center of the Colony. Scanning the Square, most of the buildings around it appeared commercial … but not all. There were residential structures scattered around in clusters. Different sizes and styles, but clustered together by size and type. It would seem that even their rebellion was semi-ordered.
His attention was next drawn to the road he was standing on. Not concrete, but not soft like a normal dirt road, either. Joe scuffed it with his boot. More like ceramic than anything else. Like a giant ceramic ribbon … who knows how thick, but at least half a meter, with random cracks provided by time and nature. The road in front of the Bar was wide enough for two vehicles and looped the square.
“Left or right.” Joe needed to choose a direction. To his right was a Wholesale Food and Grocery [23] while the building to his left had a Grav-Pickup parked next to it … so Joe chose LEFT. The Grav Truck belonged to a company that specialized in the Construction and Repair of Air Conditioning and Filtration Systems [19]. Passing the side street, Joe caught a glimpse of a Factory [15] … which, besides being large, was also a reinforced masonry structure rather than any sort of modular metal box, like most buildings in The Colony.
The sounds of wildlife and cursing drew Joe’s attention away from the factory and further to the left.
11 AM Pressure Tent near [19]
Joe located the animals before the cursing … ultimately, the two were unrelated. In a partially wooded area next to the HVAC Contractors, was a fenced clearing with a Horned Grazer about 30 kg in size. Upon closer examination, the pen contained several other animals … each member of this menagerie was a single individual of a different species. Joe was not much of a ‘Farmer’, but even he knew that was not how breeding livestock works. Near the pen was a Pressure Tent. From the pattern, you suspected Army Issue ballistic cloth. From the vast number of patches, you suspect both Military Surplus and OLD military surplus. The campsite surrounding the Tent was completely ‘Military Regulation’ order … from the stones surrounding the fire pit, to the alignment of the folding chairs, to the way the wood was stacked. On the opposite side of the Tent from the Animals was a garden … a substantial garden at that. Not the sort of garden that one does for a hobby, but the sort of garden that one feeds themselves from.
Short blonde hair, green eyes and a burn scar on the side of her face that disappeared down the collar of her military issue coverall … Olivia emerged from the tent holding a partially disassembled diesel injection assembly in one hand and needle-nose pliers in the other. A blade that from your vantage point looked like half-way between a knife and a machete, hung from her belt and did not escape your notice.
