Hermes woke up to the sound of a splash and a short scuffle on the water. He pulled back the tarp that covered the mouth of his little cave cubby just in time to see an eagle flying away with a fish in its talons. He started a fire and set water to boil as he went to relieve himself. Coming back, he passed Rachel. She greeted him as she made her way to the community food pit to fry up breakfast for everyone. Once Luis made his way to the riverbank, He and Hermes set up their nets across the river. After breakfast, Hermes started up the creek, passing his neighbors along the way.
He got to the top of the falls, where the mill was being built and got to work sanding down the log that he managed to float down the creek. It had taken him half a year, but today was the day. The water wheel was finally ready to be assembled. Judging by the sun it was early afternoon when Luis, along with Rachel and Dahlia came hauling their morning catch up the cliff.
After dropping off her load at the abandoned restaurant, Dahlia came back out and joined Hermes. “Hungry, she asked him. “I brought you some lunch.” She handed him an aluminum wrap of sausage and potatoes.
“Thank you,” he said, immediately stuffing his face. Mmm, where’d we get the sausage?
“Apparently someone took down a boar and brought it to a butcher. some managed to make its way to us. So, today’s the day, huh?”
“Yeah, if all goes to plan, we will have refrigeration in a matter of hours.”
“Yay, no more smell of pickled fish.”
“Yup, now it’ll just be the smell of fish. I’m ready to assemble the wheel, if you want to stay and help?”
The two slide the wheels into place on both sides of the axle log, and, using a couple of manually operated cranes, lower the water wheel into position. As it slid into place the cogs started spinning providing power to the generator that had been hooked up to Sea Salt’s power, and for the first time since the excel plant was destroyed the lights turned on. Had the sun not still been up it would have been a beautiful sight.
“We need to call a community meeting,” Dahlia said.
They hopped on a two-seater and peddled down the road to the signal tower. They took the hidden staircase down to the base of the tower and rang the bell to call for a community meeting. Then they hiked down to the meeting place along the riverside. People filled the steps, waiting for Hermes and Dahlia to inform them what the meeting was about.
“As you may have noticed I have been working on something for the past six months in the hopes that it might get some of the power back on,” said Hermes. “Well today I have finished it and was able to restore power to our storage building.” The crowed erupted in cheers and applause. “And I believe we may be able to connect to a larger grid as well.” The cheers became louder. “Well, don’t get too excited. We only have about three months until the creek freezes over, so enjoy it while it lasts.”
“While we’re all here,” said a voice in the crowd. It was one of the elders, Madison. “I was out making deliveries earlier today, and I came across this.” She climbed down the steps and handed a sheet of paper to Hermes. On the flyer was a large Q encircling the words “Think for yourself”. After he took it in, Hermes passed the flyer around for everyone to see. “Cult propaganda,” Madison continued, from pre-collapse, violent fanatics who believed that their child rapist messiah was sent from god to eliminate all other child rapists. We had thought they were all gone, that at least they would have stopped believing once their messiah got himself killed by not taking a pandemic seriously. But it seems that they only went underground. We must keep on the lookout for anymore signs.”
The assembly dismissed, and Madison took Hermes and a few others up to where she found the flyer. There were ten more plastered up on the transit shelter.
“That’s a lot of work to do by hand,” Hermes said.
“Doesn’t look hand drawn,” replied Dahlia. “They must have some way to print it. Maybe they have some library up and running.”
“Something like that is bound to be noticed. We’ll have to have a crew of people make rounds to the nearby libraries to check them out,” Hermes said. “And we should prepare the tunnel in case this problem comes to us.”
They walked back to their encampment, and Hermes, with the help of a few other, worked well into the night to open up the tunnel, placing scaffolds to keep dry above the running water and making sure the torches were ready far down the tunnel.
Hermes found his way back to his shallow cave early in the morning and fell asleep to the calm sounds of the creek flowing into the larger river. He woke up to the smell of lunch being prepared.
“Good morning,” Dahlia greeted him as he pulled back the tarps that covered his small cave opening.
“What, were you waiting for me,” Hermes responded.
“No, I was just on my way to wake you. Figured you’ve slept long enough. Plus the first patrol just returned, and I thought you might want to know if there were any news.”
They both walked up the path along the creek to lunch where they met up with the patrol. “Any news,” Dahlia asked.
“Unfortunately not,” George replied. “No sign of this cult at any of the surrounding libraries on this side of the river. We’re gonna head to the other side after lunch.”
“Good,” said Hermes. “I’ll come with.”
After Hermes ate his breakfast, and everyone else ate their lunch, they made their way to the river bank where they were ferried to the other side. Once there, it wasn’t hard to pick up their trail. The cult’s propaganda was hard to miss, and the trail led them straight to the source. An old school. The words above the gate read “The College of Saint Catherine” and on either side painted on the stone read “#wwg1wga”. Hermes looked through the iron bars and, painted on the pavement, he saw: “Save the Children”. He pushed through the gate, but George pulled him back.
“Madison said they were violent. Now that we know where they are, we should regroup and come up with a plan before we move forward.”
“Smart,” agreed Hermes, and they headed back to the falls. He told Dahlia what they found when he returned. When dinner rolled around, they got their meal and turned back toward their evening’s entertainment.
