Chapter 2: Taran - Year 2073

4:00am is my favourite time of day. Everything is hushed, the sky is still dark. Soon, first light will attempt to break through on the horizon. Things smell a little fresher, as though kissed by mother nature while we were all sleeping. I'm reminded that our planet still lives, still breathes, though we've done our level best to bring the fucker down with us.

I crouch next to the shell of a burned-out vehicle, my back pressed against the cool metal door panel. It's part of the barrier wall around our Sanctuary city, built on the ashes of Tucson. What a joke. There's nothing welcoming about this Sanctuary. Except that it's relatively safe from the Primitives. But it's no kind of real sanctuary. If it was, then the self-elected leader and his rabid crew of enforcers would open the city to anyone and everyone in need. Instead, they've locked it down tight, only accepting select individuals; men who can work and women who can bear children.

I found this out the hard way when I was taken in as a teenager while my grandparents were left outside the barrier to fend for themselves. I hadn't wanted to leave them behind. I'd kicked and screamed as I was dragged into the city. I don't know what happened to my grandparents. Probably dead. Not many survive the outside world without sanctuary. I'd been taken because I was old enough to get pregnant and young enough to have many babies for a civilization that relies on population renewal. As soon as I entered the city I was given citizenship and a husband.

A train whistles loud and clear, piercing the morning stillness.

"That's the signal," Emery whispers from beside me.

I nod and indicate that she should stay and keep watch as we'd discussed, while I cross the barrier wall. Her worried eyes are on me and I can see the argument threatening to leap to her lips once more. She'd older, more experienced, can handle weapons better. I shake my head and double-check the rifle slung across my back. She may be the better choice in some ways, but I'm not risking the woman who has become everything to me in this terrible post-apocalyptic world. We both know she can't scale the wall in the time I can. I'm smaller, faster and tougher.

She sighs her resignation and presses her fingers into my shoulders, giving me her sternest, most motherly look. I offer her a half smile and nod, promising silently that I'll be as safe as I can. She drops her hands from my shoulders and picks up a charcoal pen, running it under my eyes and over my cheeks, chin and forehead. She uses her thumbs to rub it in, blending it over my face but leaving the heaviest marks under my eyes. She does this for two reasons. One is to protect my skin from the sun. Sunscreen is a commodity that only the rich have access to and my skin is fairer than most as I'm from the far North and Sanctuary is located in the Sonoran Desert, in what used to be Arizona.

The second reason is more important. Darkening my face gives me more of a chance to blend in if I run into Primitives on the other side of the barrier. For some reason, the first thing to decay on the bodies of the infected is their skin. It darkens, becomes splotchy and eventually rots, peeling away from the skeleton until they become little more than walking death. Of course, I should also smell like them if I truly want to get away from them unscathed, so the face trick only works at a distance.

"Be careful, Taran," she whispers, worry clear in her tone.

"Always." I shoot her a cheeky grin and pat her leg before standing. I reach over my head for the metal frame of another car and pull myself up, the sound of her husky chuckle behind me. I grin. We both know I'm not exactly known for being careful. I'm part of the Sanctuary rebellion, we both are. The rebels are a group people who stand up to the harsh authoritarian regimes popping up in most Sanctuary cities, including ours. They're a scourge I fully intend to help bring down by doing my part.

I'm opinionated when I feel passionate about something and I can be reckless in pursuit of my goals. I've terrorized poor Emery with my disdain toward the Authority. She thinks I'll eventually be caught doing something illegal and executed or turned out of the city; both the most common sentences for treason against a Sanctuary.

I quickly lose sight of her as I'm forced to crawl through a section of beams that juts out, pointing toward the city like giant skeletal fingers. The climb is taxing, a brutal test of endurance. I'm lean, leaner than I should be. Too often I give my food rations to the hungry illegals that crowd our city slums. I know this isn't a smart choice. That I'm depleting the strength that I desperately need to survive in this tough, uncompromising world. But it's all I have to give back to the underground community that has sheltered me for more than a decade.

The climb becomes steeper as heaps of twisted metal and concrete, leftovers from old vehicles and collapsed infrastructure, thin out toward the top. I've been climbing for almost an hour now, never stopping. There isn't time to stop. I must complete my task as quickly and quietly as possible. My breath comes out in short, sharp puffs and my muscles are screaming at me. I know I can do this though. I've done it dozens of times. It's one of my most important tasks among the rebel faction; lead the refugees rejected by city officials into our Sanctuary. A dangerous, but necessary job.

I've reached the pinnacle of my climb, about twenty feet from the very top of the wall. A wall built to keep out the Primitives. Or so we're told. In reality, the wall, built all the way around the city, also serves to keep the citizens trapped within and make sure the refugees are kept out. We haven't had a Primitive attack in almost a year. And though they are easily distracted and driven by instinct, they're fast and they can still climb, if they believe the object of their fixation, fresh meat, is on the other side.

I crawl headfirst into a section of metal piping, squeezing myself through the narrow space. The top sections of the wall are impossible to get through, topped by massive sections of metal plating and barbed wire. The tunnel is a tight fit, but I've been this way before. My shoulders and hips are just barely small enough to get me through. I climb out the other side and breathe for just a moment, sitting on top of the barrier, looking out across the vast landscape. Shadows are giving way to morning sun, blazing its way strong and sure over the top of the Rincon mountain range, to the East of the city. There are five mountain ranges surrounding our Sanctuary, but I'm headed Southeast this morning.

I breathe deep, taking in the early morning scents. Metal, dust, desert. The beauty laid out before me, stretched out for miles below my dangling feet, is an homage to the resiliency of our planet. Our home. Mother Nature struggles to shake off the aftereffects of humanity, while still providing sanctuary for those of us that survived the culling of our species.

I shake off the grim nostalgia and begin my descent. I'm wary now, careful to move fast, while twisting my head this way and that, searching out the city police. Or worse, the military, a squadron of savage men entrusted with our safety, guarding us from the dangers of the outside world, while holding us hostage from within. The men who helped create a city of hundreds of thousands, forcing us to follow laws that are created by the strongest because we have no choice. They are cold, cruel, angry. Hand-picked by the city's authoritarian leader and Warlord, Diogo Fuentes, for their aggressive, dominant tendencies. The few run-ins I've had with them have been far from pleasant.

Luckily, I'm small, plain, unassuming. Meek to those that don't know how to look for a strong personality filled with belief and conviction behind the exterior of a simple girl. The last person they would suspect of being a leader of the rebellion. The woman who has caused constant upheaval throughout Sanctuary. One of the people they've been trying to ferret out for the past several years with no success.

Our Sanctuary was built from the ruins of Tucson, one of the few habitable areas left on the planet. Not usually plagued by intense storms and tornadoes, the area is protected by an expanse of desert and the mountain ranges. The northern countries have been rendered mostly uninhabitable to humans through increasingly long cold winters and severe storms. Without easy access to electricity and gas, the conditions are too harsh to survive. Flash freezing, illness and, finally, mass migration took out half of the Northern populations while the Primitives took out the rest.

Beyond that, I figure the founders of New Tucson Sanctuary thought the Primitives would be less likely to cross an expanse of desert and mountains to get to a few surviving uninfected humans.

They were wrong. Nothing can stop a Primitive. They will cross oceans, mountains and deserts in search of new victims. Though they don't come often to our home, they do show up once in a while, forcing us to defend our city, defend the survivors of a dying race.

"Fuck!" I automatically yank my hand into my chest. I'd grabbed hold of a piece of twisted metal that cut into my palm, slashing it. Blood runs through my clenched fingers and over my leather vest.