Scene #9597:

Owner	Pose
Calvin Nash	It's maybe 15 minutes past midnight. The ritual is over, Hell Biker is contracted and stored in Calvin's COMP. Everyone has cleared out of the Shadowed Tabernacle. In particular, John-Wayne Ellis and Tommy McElwain have decided, rather than go home, to check out the Last Resort--the town's bar--to see if it's proprietor, Charlene, is still up. Calvin thinks there's nothing he'd like more than a drink right about now, so he's offered to take Aika along. The Demon Marshals have cleared out, for the most part, back to their homes or otherwise to their postings, leaving the town pretty quiet. It's a pretty quick ride in Calvin's truck through oystershell-paved dirt roads, in the moonlight, between a mix of restored and newly built bunk houses set on mounds of walled earth. Some of the restored ones look pre-civil war, much less pre-nuclear war. After a brief stop to pick up John-Wayne and Tommy (who politely decline, wanting to get a good walk in), it's discovered that Charlene is indeed still up. The Last Resort is built very much like the bunk houses, save its sign posted out front and its wider construction meant to accomodate crowds. Lights are on inside, and a magnetite cell generator dutifully rumbles away outside--the grave mist dissipates here, without any special means to contain emotional energy. A homemade 'OPEN' sign near the door buzzes quietly.
Aika Rosewater	Aika will never turn down a drink, especially after the word demon was involved in the hours prior. It's a good policy to have! And getting to know her fellow Paladins, even if demons hadn't been involved, would've been a sufficient excuse too. "So, fill me in, Calvin," she starts, from the passenger seat on the way over, head resting on her arm, which is itself halfway through her open window, "New York's gone. Atlanta's gone. This place looks like it's still putting itself back together, and that's some old architecture if I've ever seen any. What happened? How recently, even?" There's a thousand other questions that could be asked, but she figures, start with the basic one, and don't immediately implicate the demons. Reaching the Last Resort, she's all too eager to hop out of the truck, stretching like it's already been five hours since she last got to move. She adjusts her gloves-- checks her pockets, for that tuft of fur, make sure she didn't forget it-- and then happily gravitates towards the neon-buzzing entrance. "Damn, you see a place like this, you know you're about to either have the best beer you've ever had, or you're about to narrowly escape poisoning, and there's no inbetween." It's a compliment. "Wish there was a place in the kitchen that could pull off this ambience. It'd be a hit and a half. It's all fancy clubs now."
Calvin Nash	"Ossabaw was Indian land. Just like a lotta shit was," Calvin scoffs. "It changed hands a whole lot, between the Indians that was there, the Spanish that took it from them, the Creek Indians the English gave it to, some slave ownin' sumbitch that bought it from them, and so on, until it ended up to where Mrs. West had it. It was her family that put that mansion there, back in hippie times," he explains, thumbing at the Marshal HQ as they pass it. "She had a bunch of musicians and artists living in them houses," he says, then nodding towards the bunk houses. "Until her kids had to sell to to the state of Georgia. Then it was a wildlife preserve, which is how come everything's gettin' built up." "There'd been visitors, and people that took care of the place, but by the time the bombs dropped, nobody'd lived here in almost twenty years. And people ain't lived here in the numbers they do now since the Indians the Spanish kilt or chased off." "Bombs dropped in 1994. It's 2043 now. My mama 'n'em lived further inland, but like Pastor Fred said, it was what they call a two-thousand warhead scenario. Every major city got hit, especially the ones that did somethin' important for the rest of the country. Trucks, trains, ships, planes, none of them had any place to go, and even if they did, who was gonna drive 'em? So people came together. Ossabaw wasn't even on them people's radar--the ones that hit us, I mean. And there's land you can use to farm, plus fishin', plus the hogs and the trees." The truck drops into park. Inside, there's a stage at the east end, where the band from the ritual plays, and at the west, a wreath of wires that leads outside, also plugged into a timer reading 00:00--a mechanical bull sits nearby in a pen of scavenged chain-link. the bar proper is lined with shelves of spirits spanning a diverse selection of points of origin; many look pre-WWIII, some look homemade. A chalkboard behind the graying redhead bartender-proprietor Charlene advertises mixed drinks on offer. "Hey, kitty, kitty," she says, locking on to Aika. "Go easy on her, Charlene, she's new." Charlene laughs. "How'd it go?" "Good. You gonna be up a while?" She shrugs. "Sign's on, ain't it?"
Aika Rosewater	"Storied land, huh..." She can't help but take a good look. Her own slice of Earth is hardly regular, its history is lacking and insular. 'The US' and nothing beyond it. Not anymore anyway. Happened before she was born, and back then there were the Straits; two relocations is a lot for any one country to deal with. If she'd gone to school none of it would've been much good to keep up with Calvin much, and she didn't. "Rare you hear a story where it paid off the natives' land got ignored. Fifty years ago... that many bombs, those places must still be glowin' at night. What happened to the people who pushed the button? Can't imagine the rest of the world got off unscathed." "Hey, kitty, kitty," Aika grins; whether it's a bit, or she's actually lured by the call, she ends up by the bar, leaning down to rest her arms on it. "You didn't tell me you had people who speak cat here," she shoots Calvin, more amused than insulted. "Great taste in aesthetic and versed in linguistics. You must be the highlight of the area. Name's Aika! And yep, yep, went all fine. Calvin can throw a way meaner punch than I'd have ever guessed." Her head tilts, away from Charlene and back to the Marshal. "So what're you recommending?"
Calvin Nash	"Depends," says Calvin. "I got all kinds for all tastes, sugar pie," Charlene proudly announces. "You like beer, Glenn sells me kegs of whatever he cooks up. You like liquor, people around here know I pay well for whatever lasted, and I got people that make their own stuff, too." "Lemme get a glass of Glenn's gose," Calvin says. Go-suh. Charlene nods, grabs a glass from a set of mismatched ones up above, then turns to draw from the keg resting in a reinforced shelf behind her. "You want a beer, somethin' 'spirit-forward?' Or somethin' where you don't taste the liquor so much? Ever had a mint julep?" "Your button-pressers and your paranoid one-man-army types," Calvin explains, while Aika deliberates, "They all starved or shot each other to death. A lot of people starved. Or died from radiation. Or got hurt and died from an infection. History books say 90 percent of the population died. Far as radiation, ain't really a concern no more." "All that shit about it lastin' forever, that's a bunch of shit. Wasn't the point. The point was to make it so your enemy couldn't fight back. So they went after all that shit I mentioned, and it turned out, the States actually depended a whole lot on bein' able to move, I dunno, trucks full of meat here and trains full of corn there, and ships fulla oil over that way. So what's your average person livin' in a city do, when the heat shuts off, the electric shuts off, the water shuts off, and there ain't been a delivery at the grocery store in two months?"
Aika Rosewater	"I'll take what Calvin's havin'," Aika answers without deliberating after all, but then adds: "Pass on the mint. That stuff sends me up a wall. But if you've got something with strawberries..." Might be a big ask, given what Calvin just explained. "Really though?" she looks back at him. "'Dirty bombs' not so dirty after all? Well... still dirty, but in another sense entirely. I guess that's good for rebuilding. So the people who dun' it aren't there to repeat the blow, and... sorry, where do the demons fit in, exactly? Were they already there before the bombs or is that a brand new development?" She was clearly about to say problem and then thought better of it. Lots of those guards had demons with them, and Calvin sure does. This isn't some black and white hunter and hunted situation at all. "The markings all over the Tabernacle looked like they weren't from yesterday. Kind of stuff you dig out of ancient texts barely holding together. So I want to guess the demons've always been around, that those came to be at all. But maybe it's just thrown-together improv?"
Calvin Nash	"Strawberries're hard to come by," Charlene says. "Most of those came from out west, and the farthest west the Assembly goes is Oklahoma. Canaan--another one of the 'countries' here in America--I used to buy from, but it's gotten harder lately. Tell you what, though..." She reaches and grabs another glass from above as Calvin sips his gose. "Jack, you mind?" she asks, lowering the glass below the bar as well as a cocktail shaker. Clink clink clink. Thin trails of purple mist terminate above the countertop for a moment. "There you go-ho, hee ho!" "Thanks." She sets the glass atop the bar, then pours vodka, peach schnapps, and orange juice into the shaker, shaking it vigorously before straining it into the glass. Bending down to retrieve something from below, she pops back up, works at something--clip--and garnishes the rim with a slice of orange. "Sex on the beach. My favorite," she grins, leaning over the counter to push it towards Aika. "Everybody sent everything they had," Calvin explains. "Wasn't no dirty-nothing. It was everybody's best against everybody else's best. The demons, those... ain't brand new, 'cause there is knowledge that's both old and reliable, 'bout demonology. But they were a lot, I mean... a lot less common than they are now. You'd have a better chance at gettin' struck by lightnin' than trackin' down a ritual that worked to even meet one, and then you'd have to be able to understand 'em." "They can damn near come and go how they like these days. But back then they had to be invited, and it was a lot harder besides. Think of it like a gate that got blown wide open, and now it don't shut right."
Aika Rosewater	"Yeah I bet," on the matter of strawberries. "Good to know you still got 'em though. Oh, god, hang on-- Calvin," she turns, as fully, as Charlene starts mixing. "Did pizza survive? The real kind not that thick oily mess the little chains think they're being cute by serving." It's important. Her attention turns back to their generous bartender as a classic gets passed her way; Aika picks it up, gently swirls it under her nose, and then bravely, very bravely, keeps a poker face despite the presence of citrus. "Never had one of these. Can't be too bad if it's a favorite though." Sip. C'mon Aika you have had to endure MUCH worse than this. This is small fries. Just chug it down!! She chugs it down. Grimaces, shakes her head, and then breathes a happy sigh, putting the glass back down. "Phew. Yep! Favorite. So what's in the 'gose'?" Back onto demons then. "So they went from myth and cryptid to walkin' the Earth... did the people who dropped the first bombs know that was on the table at all? Sorry for the million questions, if you can't tell, I don't get out much. Traveling was a luxury before I joined. Now it's a perk! Once you get past the guilt of being just a bit less present back home, it's pretty enjoyable. Even though, there's a few too many apocalypses for my taste."
Calvin Nash	Did pizza survive? "Not down here it didn't, honey," says Charlene sadly, shaking her head. "If anybody's alive in New York, maybe up there, it did. It's a long way from here to there. There's three 'countries' in America right now. The Southeast Assembly--that's us--goes from Ossabaw Island here at one end to north Oklahoma at the other, and it don't go no farther north than that, or farther south than Georgia. Then there's Canaan, which runs from west from south Colorado and north New Mexico all over Utah and into about a fifth of Wyoming. Bumped right up against Canaan, you got Libertalia, in New Mexico, Arizona, all over Nevada and a little into north California." "Both of them're in Texas these days, too," Calvin adds. "What do they want there?" asks Charlene, in the way that Americans talk political shop. "Templar I know says it's part of God's plan, 'cause of course she does. Really, somebody prolly heard there was oil there," Calvin opines. "Then one of 'em wanted it 'cause the other did. Anyway." He motions with his glass for Charlene to continue. She nods. "The tomatoes, the wheat, even the meat for the pepperoni, that wouldn't be a problem. But for 'real' pizza, you'd need them cheeses that only the factories and the Italians and..." A smile spreads, as something funny strikes her. "And the people like Glenn know how to make. And we don't got a Glenn for cheese in Georgia," she chuckles. "That sumbitch knows his beers," says Calvin appreciatively. "I didn't even know what a gose was 'til this year. What'd he say was in it?" "Wheat, coriander and salt," Charlene answers. "Well it's damn good," Calvin affirms, explaining for Aika's benefit, "Lot like another thing he makes with wheat, them... berlinerweisses. Not really bitter at all. Goes down easy, little sour, little salty. Real, real nice." Did the people who dropped the first bombs know that was on the table at all? "They didn't know their ass from a hole in the ground," says Calvin. Charlene snorts. "Probably not."
Aika Rosewater	"Damn. Tragedy. Y'know, not as much as the billions of lives lost, but you don't 'ppreciate the little things enough until suddenly getting strawberries or even good cheese becomes a conditional. I'm realizing how lucky we were that stupid Psychonauts kitchen had all that crap in it, and that that Ahn girl could cook a hell of a survival meal." She wouldn't want another hellweek like that though. A little mental map draws itself in Aika's head, rough in places, and with surely at least two states swapped. It's a clear enough picture, but it leaves the rest of the world a big blank space. "Hang on did you say Templar and God?" Aika ughs, clearly opinionated. "Please tell me people figured out a post-apocalypse scenario isn't the place to war and crusade. Or did demons make that worse?" She'd presume that might play a factor, whether they're peaceful or not. And then you've got the Hell Biker types... "Still, convenient for them the bombs let them in, if that wasn't part of the plan. Like turning a corner and finding exactly what you need by chance."
Calvin Nash	Please tell me people figured out a post-apocalypse scenario isn't the place to war and crusade. Or did demons make that worse? "Oh, shug," Charlene sighs. "It ain't really as simple as one or the other." "There hasn't been any war, not between any of the big three. But put yourself in someone else's shoes, for a minute. You're out there, living in some podunk town in Utah. Maybe you're there because you were born there," she continues, wiping the bar down, "Or, maybe you're there because... you're stuck there." Charlene smiles sadly, her steely eyes twinkling with empathy for a person she's never met. "All the good jobs are other places. Maybe, depending on who you are, and how the world treats people like you, all the interesting people are somewhere else. Maybe you feel like all the life is somewhere else. Even the happy people in a place like that know that that the whole rest of the country, the whole wide world, don't really care at all about your teeny tiny little corner of it. Then, one day, it all gets taken away." "Just like that. A little island in a great big sea, washed away. Your little speck of a town, what business did it have being out in the middle of the desert anyway? Whatever made it useful, that was a long time ago, and now it's just a stop on the way for truckers and tourists to some place more important or interesting--and there ain't never gonna be no more of either. So people leave, or they stay, but either way, they die." She frowns bitterly. "They start dyin', of hunger, of thirst, of sickness, and you're sittin' there thinkin', 'why us?' If you ever lied awake at night thinking about what'd happen if it ever All Happened, you probably got to sleep by remindin' yourself that the rest of the world didn't even know your little podunk-ass town existed. But now, you're startin' to figure out they didn't need to. And right when things start to look like Hell on earth, that's when he shows up." "An angel of God, clean and kind and beautiful and surrounded by dirty, ugly, dying things, and he waves his hand and that desert ground just... obeys him. Now your little town is a garden of Eden, and all that angel asks you is something you knew in your heart you were ready to give him from the minute he showed up. Not to make war," she says, shaking her head. "Not even to shed blood, but to 'prepare the earth for a kingdom that'll last a thousand years.' To give yourself to God--how easy is that, when just a week ago, you didn't even have the calories to cry for him?" Charlene chuckles mirthlessly. "That was in ninety-six, sugar pie. The dream of that kingdom has kept those people going for almost fifty years now, and Libertalia, they got a dream of their own, and so do we. Are there people that want to 'crusade?' Of course. Of course," she repeats, pouring herself a little shot of vodka. "But," she says, downing it, "Once upon a time, I was a communications major. There are people alive who remember how much we have to lose, because they was alive back then."