If there was something she didn't want to be, it was a burden. She had always prided herself on being able to carry her weight wherever she went, even with the Knights. She was learning from them but she was helping however she could too.
"You might want to hold off on the nap."
"Hmm?" Jessica13 straightened in the cockpit and realized she had already begun to drift off. She took a deep breath and looked at Tinker, who approached with an easy stride.
His head popped out of the mech and peeked at her. "Jessie, are you busy?"
"Not…not at the moment, no."
"Hammerhand wants to see you. Come on."
He dropped into the mech and she followed him through the town to where the newcomers had pitched their tents. They were literal tents made from tarps and sticks, and she wondered briefly if the spikes they had on their mech armor doubled as the poles to keep their shelters up.
Her companion led her onward until they reached the outer rings of the tents and moved toward the largest one, which was as big as one of the houses in Auburn. It was bigger than the Beast, without a doubt.
Tinker climbed out of the mech and indicated for her to do the same, and they entered the canvas dwelling. A dozen or so of the others from the desert were present, dressed in the same flowing robes although less colorful. All wore pale-blue and they carried weapons. They were the guards for the Prophet, the man who had come to their rescue.
She still didn't know how he had known to come or why. There appeared to be nothing to gain, but they had also remained after the battle. Of course, the threat of Athena and her people still hung over the town like a storm cloud, but they couldn't attack. They now lacked the numbers to launch an assault like they had before. Of course, the Knights couldn't either.
They were in the oddest kind of stalemate.
The Prophet was seated on a plush red velvet cushion on the ground, his legs crossed in front of him, and his fingers curled his mustache absently.
Hammerhand sat beside him and looked uncomfortable. He slouched on the cushion instead of sitting cross-legged and didn’t look up as they stepped into the tent. Instead, his gaze was fixed in a glare at the man seated across from both of them, Mayor Jones. He also looked uncomfortable on the cushion, although he had adopted the cross-legged posture of his host. One more person was present who she wasn't familiar with.
The man was short and lean, although Jessica13 had never seen the likes of him before. He wore a uniform suit, although not a flight suit, and it was divided clearly into a jacket and pants of unmistakable quality. Beneath it, he wore a gray vest, and under that was a white shirt, which in turn had a small tie that tucked into the vest.
She recalled a few pictures of men and women dressed in similar fashion in the info archives at Sanctuary but thought the style had long since died out.
"Mr. Stone," the Prophet said and obviously continued a previous line of thought, “you have to understand that security must be established in this area. That is our only priority."
"Please, call me Levi," he replied with a polite smile as the Prophet sipped from a tiny silver cup. "As Expedition Master for the New York Western Railway Company, I can't make that kind of a promise. You know that for security to be established in this area, the Citadel bunker must be defeated once and for all."
Jessica13 narrowed her eyes.
Tinker leaned closer to her. "The Citadel bunker is where those fuckers who attacked us came from."
"It's not actually a bunker, not in the way you think." The Prophet appeared to have heard what they had talked about and wanted to make sure everyone in the room was on the same page. "It is called FEMA City by those who reside within and it is a city, not a bunker. The population is larger than most, and that allows them to field more mechs in battle, as we are well aware."
"I thought all the cities were lost."
"This one was underground." The man seemed to enjoy having a captive audience and spoke with deep inflections that made it sound like he told a story. "It was founded by a long-lost civilization with the intention of being a fortress against the Invaders, one that would be able to field their culture once everything calmed, you understand? They invented the balloons that were used to attack you. They called them Zeppelins—those that can control the weather—and all the other technology to recreate the world from what it had become into something that allowed us to live on the surface again. This leads people to come and settle, like the founders of this town of Auburn."
She leaned forward and listened. The Prophet appeared to know a great deal about the world they lived in and seemed more than willing to share his knowledge with those who wanted to listen. "Is that why we need to defeat them once and for all?"
The man turned to look at her and smiled broadly. "Yes, child, and for many other reasons. They have technology from the Cities-That-Were gathered in their vaults. And they have gene vaults too, that maintain what was lost in the world—seeds from plants, trees, and crops that could be brought out into the world to feed everyone. Of course, they will not share this with the rest of us without a price. They are remnants of an extinct culture—one that is extinct for a reason. They would not tolerate the lives of those who live beyond. Those they accept must conform to the ways of their fossil society."
"Then why allow them to continue and remain so powerful?" Tinker
