[h1]Lower Peninsula[/h1]
[h2]Detroit[/h2]

The sun glistened off of wet pavement. Through a cracked storefront window it illuminated the dusty bar room. Empty fluorescent lights sagged from fraying cables in the ceiling, which was naked struts, beams, and air circulation vents that sat silent and filling with dust. A thin crowd filled the establishment, many wearing the tattered gray-blue uniform of the Aventurier company, here on break from their base at Fort Renaissance.

Not far beyond the window the Detroit River flowed steel gray and shimmering between they and Canada. The skeletons high-rises of Windsor not far from view. Along the streets wagons shuffled along at staggered distance. Some appearing one after the other, then for there to be a dead silence on the streets for half an hour.

Detroit had a reputation before the war for being a city that had been on its last legs. But climbing back up before the bombs dropped it had shone promise. Not to be great as it once was: but to simply be a livable city again. It was that city that the bar celebrated to its best abilities. In the lights of candles, the sun, and more than a few fat-fueled lanterns colored images of a city on the rebound hung in cracked frames on the walls. Men driving already old – if well kept cars – driving down Woodward Avenue smiling and beaming at the camera. Scenic pictures of joggers on the River Walk. The stoic marble Art Foundation glimmering bright and pure in a white winter's sun and the vibrant eatery scene of Corktown.

There wasn't a method or a specific theme on the walls except simply for an Old Detroit. An Old Detroit from before the bombs. The entrepreneur who held tight to his bar at the river felt he owed that much to himself.

“I see you found some fuel.” a man at the bar pointed out, breaking a long silence of his own after a fresh sandwich and a warm glass of a fizzy apple pop.

The man, an Aventurier in his late thirties wore all the brisk trim and polish of an officer in the local armed militia slowly turning merchants, or merchant scouts. The complex and slow shift in their priorities was becoming a baffling question to itself. While they still performed their patrols of the Detroit ruins and held uncontested control of the Detroit river it was somehow not nearly enough for their command who was becoming increasingly interested in finding routes to play trade across and running supplies on their own.

They had gone so far as to try and unseal the Chicago River three times, but the locks that held the river shut were more stubborn than the Sault, welded shut by nuclear Armageddon and rust.

In the corner of the bar an old CD player sat on a lonesome table spinning working music from the bar owner's collection that had survived the great cataclysm. Of piquing interest from the speakers was the work of Jack White.

“Yea, I managed to find some at a price I can afford. But I don't think the ethanol will be good on the generator. Seals are hard to come by.” the bar owner grumped from behind the counter. Though he only had the old scarred player connected to the generator there was a deep and grave concern in his voice that betrayed a feeling of sorrowful morning.

It was keyed into easily by the Aventurier, “I'm sure you can teach someone to perform White Stripes.” he joked, sipping the soda. He bore a long smile across his long square face and slapped his thin lips together as he swallowed.

“You like it? I just got a few barrels of that from Grand Rapids.” the bartender said.

“Beer and coke, who would have known.” the company man chuckled.

“It's not the same shit as what we had when I was kid. But tell ya what, I have something stronger if that'll do for you, Paullie.” the bartender offered. His old face lightened with hope and for a second even his silver hair glowed with expectation.

“I'm on duty now, but thanks for the offer.” Paul declined, the bartender's blue eyes dropped and he sighed woefully, “I might stop by later if the bosses drag me through the ringer. But thanks for the offer, Rog.”

“Fucking shit Paul, you know you're a sober man.” Rog the bartender laughed, “Fuck, I ain't ever gonna shill this out to you, am I?”

“Nope.” Paul answered.

“Well whatever, you can't have it all.” Rog said resigned, “Maybe someone else.

“What's the news these day around the 313?”

“Same fucking shit as any day. Someone clubbed another down by 8 Mile and I had to be there with my men to clean up the mess.”

“Anything to keep the peace, am I right?”

“Yea, sure. But you're certainly loved by the tribals here for simply preventing their revenge conflicts. There ain't no civility here. That's for sure.”

“Don't be too hard on them, we Detroiters have been through a lot.” Rog said with an apologetic smile, “I know you weren't born before the bombs dropped, but you got to believe me.”

“Alright, I'll believe you.” Paul answered, choosing to humor the old man as he took a bite from the remainder of his sandwich. By this point what had been a simple beef sandwich had become a greasy strip of crust on his plate.

“I'll tell you one thing, after the bombs came down it was a Hell greater than I've ever seen this city dragged through.”

“How so?”

“You ever seen a man so blown up by an explosion he shambles like a living corpse down the street? I've seen that Paul, I've seen some shit; tell you what.”

“Monsters and ghouls is nothing new.”
“They certainly weren't fucking new back then!”

“Well a few have tried to get over The Bridge before. There's a reason no one likes to sit up there. It may be boring but Hell'll come quick in the form of a big heavy that has to be forced over the edge to drown or you're missing a few limbs or a face.”

“Brother, how can you even think about that after evening. I still get sick when I think about the bombs.” Rog moaned.

“I got numb to it.”

From across the room there was a disturbance as the bell over the door jangled from its wire. The old pre-war bartender turned to look over. “Looks like another friend of yours is in.” he said in a low voice.

Paul looked up to the door. Standing in the sunlight was another Aventurier man. A younger specimen with a boyish face still, he had to be no older than sixteen. His trime flat-pressed button down uniform didn't scream a man on street patrol and his red cap was still clean. He scanned the room for a little, looking lost.

“You want a drink?” Rog called out to him.

“No sir, I'm looking for a captain Paul Suffridge.” the youth answered, clearly not knowing who Paul was.

“Here!” Paul answered, raising his hand as he stood up out of his seat.

“Good, the Marshal wants to see you.” said the courier.

“What for?” Paul asked.

“He didn't say, but you need to report back to station and see him. He's waiting.”

“Alright, I'll be in there. Run ahead and tell him I'm five-minutes behind.”

The courier nodded and turned back out the door. Briskly running down the empty streets in the direction of Fort Renaissance. Paul dug about in his pockets to pay his tab before Rog stopped him, “I'll get you later. Your boss is waiting for you.”

“Thanks, man.” Paul smiled, taking his own tufted cap from the counter and pulling it down onto his head.

As he left the bar there was a muted and mutual “good luck” from the others scattered about.

Stepping out onto the street he immediately was greeted by the cool moist air. There was a clear singing of birds in the spring-time stillness of the air. The caw of crows echoed between the empty towers of Detroit. Seagulls nested in the light-posts, watching Paul with a sharp cynical sneer in their black gaze.

Elsewhere there were finches and other noisy song-birds making use of the warming temperature as duck and geese came back home from the south.

Even distantly, misshapen and echoed by the valley of cement and glass that was downtown Detroit the calls and yells of the remnants of humanity that lived in Detroit's new wasteland did not disturb the city's return to nature. It was a process that historically, come could claim was already happening even before the bombs fell. But with no one to care to clean the city of the weeds and the vines, the open grass plots in its parkways were becoming vastly over-grown with grasses and weeds. The trees that had diligently survived nuclear devastation grew without hindrance where they had been planted by the road-side until they pushed up from the side-walks the iron grates that had decoratively trimmed their trunks and framed them in the concrete.

While nuclear apocalypse had been the finishing nail in the Renaissance of Detroit in the 21st century, once and for all destroying the city's surviving industry, the human use in the city had not completely disappeared, contributing to the distant sounds of human activity that echoed like specters through its abandoned streets. Following the slow and uneasy assertion of power of the surviving state government, Detroit became a scavenging yard for scrap, dug into by fearless scrappers and their families making quick use of the valuable copper and iron that they could carry off and sell to communities. The city became a hub for the commerce, accepting wagons or commandeered ships clear to the docks for the resources dug out of the ruins to move elsewhere with abandon.

These scrappers quickly turned into the present tribes of Detroit; or rather, they were self anointed tribes but more like the old persistent street gangs. The same groups that had gave Lansing hell a couple decades ago and vying for a “independent kingdom of Negroes” in the old Metropolitan area, headed by a so-called Kwame II.

It had been where the Aventuriers stepped in. Born from the romance of Detroit's french past they conspired with Lansing to put an end to Kwame II and in return the Aventurier paramilitary were awarded license to use Detroit as it saw fit. Recruiting out of, working out of, and directing scrap in Detroit. And under Aventurier control the city realized a second purpose.

It was to them a hub, a central hub in the shadow of the old Renaissance Center at the banks of the Detroit River. Elevated up from street level, the commercial complex had become a fortress. Built up around it perimeter brick rubble and steel walls guarded or closed the perimeter, closing the already collapsed people mover transport hub. It was a fort, a citadel which threw its shadow down across the street with all the towering splendor of the mid 20th century, and through which Paul walked.

Though grand, the six towers it comprised had in the years after the bombs partially collapsed and broken, turning the monument of glass and steel in a motly stand of hollow hoodoos that stood a vigilant grave over the river. The central tower, which had once flown the logo of GM was missing it branding, and the crown of its mast. The large GM logo had been missing when the Aventuriers arrived, believed scuttled away to some god forsaken corner of America.

It was that central office though became the keep of the new Fort Renaissance, where the Aventuriers ruled and command brooded. In rounding the perimeter the bastion towers towered over Paul and the men that walked the tall base that was the platform for the entire structure. The sturdy cement, brick foot that had withstood Armageddon and fire, unsheered, uncracked, tested true.

River-side the complex's entrance stood a solemn guard with its patchwork facade, reconstructed with newly cooked glass, or laid over with sheets of wood to seal the fanned entrance of the Atrium hall. Wooden Scaffolding anchored to the cement river walk and moored into the Detroit river ran clear to the old Wayne County Port authority. Here boats sat docked and Aventuriers worked dock-side.

The uniform of the Aventurier looked like an imaginative cross-section of 19th century garb crossed with French Fur trader circa 18th century. Gray-blue slacks held up by rope string with an overlaying military coat with a thick black belt. Many wore a deflated white bonnet, a tuft of string hanging down from the flaccid hat to dangle along at the cheek or on the back of the neck.

For officers like Paul, the cap was less limp dicked and attracted the alert salutes of the well-respecting minor foot soldiers and operators of the Aventuriers. Though still white, the hat was a much more robust phyrgian cap, tied at the ends with yellow.

Spring sunlight poured through the atrium ceiling, a checkerboard of overhead old and new glass glowed with the sunlight as within the Wintergarden Atrium hummed quietly with the activities of the Aventuriers. The towering three-story atrium was used in full. A display of the company's self-imposed power and recycling of the old world. With his feet echoing on the tiled floor Paul kept a brisk pace through the warm greenhouse air. The old diners that had been the norm had long since been turned into canteens for the plebeians and the non-commissioned officers of the force, who absconded from the more expensive fair nearby for overcooked pork and crow.

The fort's halls and branches soon dispersed under the light of skylights to the numerable towers. But like a monolith overhead the central tower stood posed to speak the sky, and it was where Paul was bound.
______________________

While stripped, the suites of the mid-tower were spacious. Cleaned out, they were bare and impartial. Floor to wall windows looked at the city outside, and across the river to the south. Standing in the Marshall's office Paul had a clear view to the city of Windsor across the river, the old Canadian casinos were skeletons in a city ruin, and Caesar's Windsor was particularly clear, though all the signs of the old days were dead and dim. And while at the edge of view the span of the Ambassador Bridge stood as the only solemn link here to Canada, the old tunnel having collapsed and flooded with river water.

“Captain Suffridge.” the marshal greeted with a wide smile as he stepped into the office.

If it weren't for the marshal's uniform, a man who crossed him in his office might see him as a man who had rejected wealth. And his physical person was as austere and simply kept as the room. A tall proud looking person, he was also basic and clean. Shallow wrinkles and lines flowed lazily across a face that was soft and almost fatherly. His green eyes greeted Paul with as much a polite glow as his handshake, “How are you doing today?” the marshal asked.

“I'm doing well, marshal Fyde.” Paul greeted.

“Good to hear, and I might perhaps have an assignment for you that might make your days better if all pans out.” Marshal Fyde started, walking towards the winter. Pointing down to the boats docked in the river he asked: “How long has it been since you were last on the water?”

“Sailing?” Paul started, “Well, I think maybe six years since my last duty on the water.”

“How'd you like to go back on it then?” Fyde asked with a wide beaming smile.

“Is this about Chicago again?”

“No, not at all.” Fyde laughed, “I gave up on trying to break open those locks. And trying to get around isn't worth it. City was hurt too hard.

“No, I'm looking to seek a route into the Atlantic. God willing the New York canals weren't obliterated by the nuclear storm.”

“I know nothing about no canals, sir.”

“Well, you'll sure enough come to know them soon.” Fyde nodded confidently. He pointed to a particular wooden cog docked in the middle.

“La Griffon 2.” he declared, “It only has a couple days to being finished and all that's left is the allotment of rigging and guns. I got word from Freedom Arsenal that the two guns I commissioned for it are in the process of being finished casting. They'll be loaded on a wagon and delivered here in the next two days and loaded on board. As soon as they are, you're to take its christening voyage to New York.”

“Sounds easy enough sir, but there are other more dedicated captains. What happened to Mayward?” inquired Paul.

“Mayward is on an assignment looking for a lost ship in the Superior.”

“Penscoit then?”

“He's retiring, he asked for his final assignment to be moved to administering the small stop-over port at Sannilac, he said he wants to try and make something of somewhere before he dies. That's his retirement assignment, he's committed to never sail again.”

“And I suppose there's no one as veteran as I?” Paul asked.

Fyde gave him an affirmative nod. “Your mission isn't as simple as simply breaking out into the Atlantic and reporting back. I want something established out there before you return, some commitment from some populations to be incorporated in our routes. With them we'll have the longest range of any company. Understood?”

“Yea, I understand. That sounds easy enough. What'll be the goods to barter with?”

“Don't move too fast captain,” Fyde said with a scowl, “I'm not there yet.

“When you get out to the Atlantic you're going to head north to Canadian Acadia if you can get to the Atlantic. Connect with the Quebecois for the sake of finding some heritage.”

“Ok, but why them?”

“Because I asked.” Fyde scoffed.

Paul figured he shouldn't pursue the line of questioning and admitted himself out of that line of questioning. Finding that he was being conceded to Marshal Fyde continued: “You will be given several crates of cherry preserves as a sample of Michigan produce, a little bit of a luxury good. Bring back whatever you can. Your crew will be company picked.”

“Of course.”

“Are we at an understanding?”

“Yes sir.”

“Excellent.” Fyde said with a grin, clapping Paul on the shoulder, “For the future: God speed.”