Sector F

Lucky Strike headed for an alley way between two houses. Rachel followed knowing this was a short cut to where Tonic’s was. They weren’t headed to the Better Living store first. The alley was made up from two completely unlivable houses. Lucky Strike had other reasons for taking this way and he grabbed Rachel’s hand. She rolled her eyes at him but laced her fingers with his.
The walk was only about ten minutes. They store looked like it had been deserted for months. Even the windows were broken out now. No doubt it had been raided by those who needed supplies and didn’t feel like paying for them. Lucky Strike shook his head thinking about how some of the Rebels were dishonest thieves who didn’t deserve their title.
They walked in the front of the shop -the door was lying on the ground as if it had been kicked out from the inside of the shop- and their boots crunched on the glass strewn about the interior. There was nothing left of value or usefulness in the store.
Rachel headed for the back but Lucky Strike pulled her away from the door by the hand he was still holding. She looked back at him and couldn’t understand the expression on his face. It was fear combined with longing. She started to move towards the door and this time he let her.
When they entered it seemed to be the only part of the shop that hadn’t been destroyed. There were a few things that had been left behind by Rebels that served as a form of tribute to Tonic but everything else was untouched. It was a sign of the respect that they had for Tonic. It wasn’t a light thing to go messing with a dead man’s personal stuff out in the Zones.
Rachel scanned the place looking for any evidence of what happened but it was exactly as Lucky Strike had described it. Nothing was out of place but a few papers that seemed to have fallen to the floor. Some had been stepped on, but most of the pages were unscathed. The two burn marks on the door Rachel knew hadn’t been there before. They were most likely made the day that Tonic disappeared.
They left the back room and went to the store front again. Rachel continued to look the place over while Lucky Strike stood next to her simply holding her hand and waiting.
“He didn’t just leave.” She said finally.
“As you suspected.” He agreed softly.
Rachel turned to stand in front of him. He placed his hands on her waist and pulled her closer.
“You’re always right.”
“Lucky Strike?” She asked feeling slightly awkward.
“You are, and I... never mind.” He sighed looking away.
He turned his face back to hers, some of his mohawked blond and brown hair fell in his eyes. Rachel brushed it back but her fingers didn’t leave his hair. They curled into it and she was the one pulling him to her. He gladly took this as a distraction from talking and backed her against a wall. She propped a foot against it and he quickly caught his hand underneath her thigh using his grip to pull their bodies closer.
They hadn’t had a situation like this in a long time. There was always someone in the house when they were together and they hadn’t risked anything other than a few kisses here and there and a make out once in the middle of the night.
Before the fire started burning too hot Lucky Strike pulled back. He looked at Rachel with that same expression of fear and longing as before. She released one of her hands from his hair and let it slip to his cheek where her thumb ran the length of his cheekbone.
“What is it? You were giving me that look before.” She asked in a hushed tone.
“I’m afraid.” He said quietly.
He had tried to tell her that before. He had tried to let her know that there was a growing fear in his heart and he couldn’t understand the source of it.
“There ain’t nothin’ to be afraid of, Babe. It’s all in the hips.” She winked giving him a pelvic thrust as emphasis.
“No, I’m not afraid of that. I’m afraid...” He couldn’t say it, if he did it would be too much like caring, like love.
She just waited patiently as he struggled in his mind. Things like this were better left up to him. She knew not to push him into saying anything. That had been a hard lesson learned when they first met.
“I’m afraid of losing...” He said trailing off.
Rachel didn’t catch that he had stopped short of what he meant to say. She thought that was all.
“They call you Lucky Strike for a reason. You’re not gunna lose.” She said with a faint smile.
He mirrored her expression to keep her from seeing that wasn’t what he had meant to say. Instead he crashed his mouth against hers a little more forcefully than was necessary. She didn’t miss a beat and pulled him closer wrapping her leg around him and pulling tight.
Only the clothing items that were in the way were removed. Out in the Zones where anyone or anything could find them it was about efficiency, not about romanticism. Quick and dirty was all they had time for. If the floor hadn’t been so littered with glass, Lucky Strike would have dragged Rachel down on top of him but having her against a wall wasn’t so bad.
When they were finished he leaned out a window smoking a cigarette as she pulled her pants back up and secured them. She walked to the window he was standing at and looked up to see the position of the sun in the sky.
“I swear, every time you take longer Strike.” She said stealing a cigarette from his pocket.
“Maybe you’re just not as good.” He smirked.
“Maybe you’re just getting too old.” She shot back.
“That’s not fair! You know I worry about that!”
“Strike, I’m older than you are.” She said calming him down.
“By six months.” He said taking a drag from his cigarette. “And you don’t have near as much sex as I do.”
“That’s what you think.” She laughed.
“You and I both know that you haven’t slept with anyone since the first time you slept with me.” He said not thinking about it.
That was the one thing they didn’t talk about, the one thing they didn’t mention. Rachel took a sidelong glance to see Lucky Strike looking paralyzed with fear midway through inhaling smoke.
“Think it’s about time I do something about that.” She said through gritted teeth as she pushed off the windowsill and headed outside.
“I’m sorry Rachel.” He said after her.
She ignored him and continued walking. He had to jog to catch up on her head start. Lucky Strike caught her arm and spun her around. She appeared vacant of emotion and that was the scariest thing he could see on her face. He knew he’d fucked up.
“We’ve got to get more water.” She said shrugging her arm from his grasp.
Lucky Strike knew he was about to dig himself deeper into the hole he was in but he couldn’t stop himself. “It’s not a bad thing that you haven’t. You just, you’re better with those kinds of things than I am. You... you’re better than I am with...”
“You can’t evens say the damn word, Strike!” She spun to look him in the eyes. “You can’t say commitment. And that sure as shit ain’t what I’m looking for.”
“Well then what are you looking for?” He asked quietly.
She very rarely was mad at him.
“A little more class.” She spat. “I don’t want to hear you almost every other night fucking someone else. My room is right next door to yours. I don’t want to feel like the one you go to when you can’t get anyone else or that I’m just the closest to your dick. I don’t want commitment, but I don’t want to feel like I’m the last choice either.”
She spun back around and headed away from him. She was going back to the house not caring that they hadn’t gotten water. Lucky Strike knew better than to follow her and was comforted by the fact that she could hold her own well enough. He sighed and continued on towards the Better Living store knowing they needed that water.
The Better Living store was just a mile from Tonic’s and blatantly advertised that it was the only place for miles that had clean water and fresh food supplies. He sighed and ducked into the store a little reluctantly.
Outside he looked just like everyone else, but inside the Better Living store he looked filthy. Everything inside was clean and white. He was covered in dirt and sweat. The cashier behind the counter gave him a disapproving glance and went back to the inventory sheet.
Lucky Strike walked to the back where there were refrigerated shelves and opened one of the doors. He was reminded of just how long it had been since he’d been in a place like this. A place that so closely resembled a grocery store of the previous world. He felt a twinge of pain in the pit of his stomach but pushed it aside as he grabbed as much water as he could carry back to the house.
He took it to the counter and begrudgingly handed the cashier what little money he had on him. Better Living water cost much more than Tonic’s. For the price he was paying he hoped the water was as clean as it advertised.
The walk back to the house was much shorter but the sun was higher up in the sky. He was laden with water and wishing he still had a car. His car had been wrecked a year ago in a fight with some Dracs.
When he finally got the water into the house where the rest of the food and supply stores were he started to pull his shirt and jacket off. Remy walked by and looked at the two water jugs with black and white smiley faces grinning up at her. She glared at the face and continued walking.
“I’d rather die.” She spat just loud enough for Lucky Strike to hear.
He tore off the plastic wrap around the water jugs so he didn’t have to look at the face. He knew it wouldn’t make a bit of difference that it was Better Living water, but he felt better not having to look at it.

“Are the Scarecrows in place?” Korse asked looking over files that had just been sent to him.
“Yes sir. They have been there since yesterday. The hostiles in Zone 5 have noticed and increase in numbers. I suggest we strike soon before they have time to prepare.” Said his daughter Viktoria, head of the Attack and Elimination Department.
“We strike when I say we will.”
“But they can do a lot with a week’s time. Why not strike tomorrow night?”
“Because I decided on the date of the strike and that is when the plan will be carried out.”
“But Father! There have been increased hostile sightings outside the walls. No action has been taken as per your orders, but they are becoming more and more confident. Last night there was a group of three defiling the outside wall on the West side.”
“Let them paint their little symbols on the wall. Soon it will be torn down and a new one will be built to encompass Zone 5.”
“Father-”
Viktoria was cut off by Korse, “I said leave it. Go attend to your other duties. Make sure the captivity and sleeper cells are ready for the hostiles we capture.”
Viktoria left her father’s office upset that he never took heed of what she suggested. If she was the head of the Attack and Elimination Department she should be listened to. He always used to listen to her sister Sandra who had held that post before her. She had her suspicions that her father had always favored Sandra and when she ran away he had to fill that post. Viktoria suspected that she got her position merely on familial relations rather than true belief in her abilities.
She knew that she could go do anything she wished to do now. The Captive Cells were ready and after their induction into Battery City they would be placed into individual Sleeper Cells until they had been healed of all their injuries if any were sustained during the fight that was bound to occur. Everything had been ready long before the troops of Scarecrows had been sent into The Colony.
The Colony was not working as they had hoped. Viktoria knew that her father was operating under the reason of expanding The Colony but the true reason was different from that. All those in The Colony considered of value to Battery City had been removed last week and replaced into their lives before they had moved to The Colony. That could only mean one thing.
Korse meant to utterly destroy The Colony and Zone 5 Sector F while he was at it. There were too many Rebels living in Sector F. They had managed to create a stabilized life free of dependency on the city.
He meant to destroy one of the last few remaining symbols of life before the Helium Wars and Fires of 2012. Destroying Sector F in totality would wipe out any last hope of structured and civilized life in large scale out in the Zones.
This was all part of his plan to eventually take down the apparent leaders of the rebellion. The Killjoys. While they had no direct involvement in Sector F, they were still considered the number one opponents to Battery City’s way of life.
It did not help The Killjoys that Korse’s eldest daughter, Sandra, had been confirmed to be living with them under the name of Silver Sands. He blamed them for stealing her away from him, for taking away his heir to Battery City.