2.
Gruff sat on an old sleeping bag, laid across a plastic tarpaulin on the hard floor of the tower, eating a bowl of soup. The tower floor had been divided between the six members of the troupe, if that was what they were. Each took up a position around the centre of the circular expanse, the fire crackling in the middle. Tuft’s makeshift lights stood staked around the camp, their bare bulbs shining bright against the thick darkness of the pit, illuminating snaking cables that ran off to the generator that buzzed persistently in the background of their daily lives.
She was starting to get the hang of this whole daily life business. It had been a long time she’d had to have been round other people, and fitting in your life with just one other was hard enough, let alone five of them. They were ok though, most kept to themselves bar Squeak. He’d given her the back story to all of the others, not that she had asked, on their first day out scavenging.
There was Tuft the leader, would had greeted them on their return from The Hole. The oldest of them all, and one of the frozen. According to Squeak, he’d woken up and wandered for months alone, until he found Lathem.
Lathem had been abandoned by his parents after his birth. Gruff figured he’d been too much of a burden. Food was scarce after The End. She should know, her father had lost his life trying to provide for her. Luckily for Lathem Tuft had found him, crying alone in an abandoned house and taken him in, giving him a name like the rest of them. Bit of a funny name thought Gruff, but Tuft insisted that all be renamed when they came under the wing of his protection, leaving their old lives behind. Of course, Lathem didn’t have an old life, Tuft was all he knew.
Tuft was a good man, thought Gruff and she didn’t know many of those. He’d found her two weeks ago, leaping after a rat in the rubble of a town a few miles from the towers. Appearing from nowhere, his voice, a gravelly baritone had called out, “Don’t be afraid, I've got food, better than a mangy rat. If you help me, I’ll give you some.” He was holding an old rucksack with cables poking from its opening. “Nothing to be afraid of, just some old cables and spare parts for a generator.” Gruff had no idea what “spare parts for a generator” were but she knew that she felt like he was telling the truth. Ten years on her own had given her a good sense for these sorts of things. She’d helped him carry another rucksack back to the towers and somehow, he’d convinced her to go down into the pit with him.
Then there was Squeak himself. He’d wondered into the tower camp himself, shouting “Hello! Is there an echo in here?” as he descended downwards. Lathem and Tuft hid in the dark waiting for him but the moment he touched the ground and began to sing to himself, commenting on how good the acoustics were inside, they decided to give him a chance. At least that’s how Gruff understood it. Before that he’d been wandering the wastelands, just like the rest of them. He mentioned he’d had a brother but didn’t say much about it, and Gruff didn’t intend to ask.
Finally, there were Scrape and Flicker, they came as a pair. Gruff had barely spoken to them. And they barely spoke to anyone else, more often than not being completely wrapped up in the other’s affairs. They were the best scavengers. Fast and nimble, according to Squeak, Flicker had gotten her name because of how fast she was, jumping in and out of sight in the rubble of a nearby town when he, Lathem and Tuft had found them. Scrape was just as fast, just not so subtle, covered in scratches that had earned her her name.
“Hey,” came the voice of Lathem from the darkness behind, bringing her out of her thoughts. He walked around her makeshift bed and sat down beside her, staring towards the fire. The shadow of his thickset jawline flickered up and down his neck in the warm light. He rubbed his rough hands together making a sound like sandpaper on wood and turned to look at Gruff “Settling in?” he asked, finally. 596Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡkPyTVK8RmQ
“I’m fine, I don’t need much to survive,” she replied. “Just glad to have something to eat.”596Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡcvUdgTmJ0e
He Chuckled, “Yeah, you could call it that. Not sure it’s much better than the rats you were roasting before you got here. Tuft knows how to boil the best out of a few scraps and an old tin of vegetables though, I’ll give him that.”596Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡTCNWfECNLv
She smiled, unexpectedly. She was not a talker, as she had quite clearly explained to Squeak, but something about Lathem set her at ease. He, unlike Squeak, was more reserved and seemed to pick and choose his moments to talk carefully.596Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡeyZZzCd6rh
“Look,” he said, continuing in his low undertone. “Things are going to change now this new girl has come. The frozen, you know about them, right?”596Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZhTUOBmN7y
“Yeah, well Tuft told me his story. About where he came from. This girl a frozen too then is she?”596Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡUM2aiFbeSM
“We think so. Scrape and Flicker found her wandering on her own, stark naked, that’s why we think she’s one of them. There’s no way you’d be walking round like that if you’d been living here any amount of time. They took her back without a second thought. Can’t believe she’s any harm, can you?”596Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQPNOe11hTA
“I doubt it, she’s barely the size of Squeak.”596Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡSzUCPVhRqc
Lathem laughed, “Right,” he agreed. “Thing is, if she’s truly a Frozen then she knows some unimaginable things, just like Tuft. That’s how he knows how to make all this stuff you know, it’s the gift of the Frozen,” he said, gesturing his head around the room to the lights and the generator, humming in the deep darkness beyond.596Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡgz6Gkx8kia
“So, she’ll be some kind of engineer?” 596Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡFNOIZjqPAs
“Could be more than that, Tuft says. Some of them know, powerful things, dangerous things. Tuft says his role is just to help rebuild. Make things for us when we start to make the world again. But the others have different roles. Greater roles.”596Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ8bpPYbRU1G
“Make the world again,” Gruff snorted, incredulously. “What’s that meant to mean?” 596Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡzsxFubHa7Z
