“Ey’ Trane, you in yet?!” A familiar gravelly voice was followed by the sound of a meaty hand rapping its knuckles against the door of the trailer, prompting Coltrane to respond with a “Yeah, just gimme a second.” When he’d finally got up to answer the door he found himself meeting an impatient Bruce, who’d evidently seen a busy day. “Hey, what’s up?” For a moment he glanced over Bruce’s shoulder to spot the gathering crowds in the distance, and the noticeably increased presence of Chico’s Militia - who also seemed to be patrolling on more of a daily basis. “Man, things are gettin’ all heated up now. I was comin’ down to see if you wanted to grab a couple beers but you can guess what I saw on my way round. People gettin’ pissed off ‘bout this cure thing and now we’ve got a couple folks from outta town all chargin’ in to get a piece of it, so the soldiers have been gettin’ all antsy and now the people are, too.” In the distance he could hear the faint arguments of the crowd as they gathered around a passing militia troop truck and figuring that it wasn’t the best idea for them both to be stood outside as they were, Coltrane beckoned for Bruce to come in and drew the door shut behind them. “Well, shit..” He muttered to himself, noticing that Bruce was nodding in agreement. “You said it, I tell you - there’s gonna be some trouble anytime soon, place is like a powder keg waitin’ to go up. After your shift was done yesterday we had the foreman tryna’ send a couple of us out on some ‘overtime’ horseshit because of some ‘refugees’ tryin’ to bust down a checkpoint. Seriously Trane, don’t let ‘em pull that shit with you - they startin’ to think we’re expendable I bet.”

“Really? Seems a bit too much for that.” Coltrane answered, though Bruce was quick to shoot him down. “Nah, I’m serious - that ain’t the only thing either, word is that they got some shit going on up North too, there’s this I guy I know who’s got a brother who does scoutin’ runs to check for herds and bandits, says he saw a chopper in the sky that looked like it was army. Sum’in like that.” He frowned, evidently skeptical at the idea. “The army, you really sure? I mean, the only time I ever saw any sign of those guys out on the road were abandoned National Guard camps with dead hanging all over them and-” The sound of a gunshot and the subsequent screams of children and adults alike in the proximity ended up cutting Coltrane off before he could complete his sentence, and in a near instant he’d instinctively dived for the window with a hand resting on his glock to see what was going on. Bruce followed suit and urgently brushed away the blinds to peer out through the window, and the sight outside was enough to leave the both of them concerned; in the distance a wounded man was slumped against the ground clutching onto his stomach whilst the soldiers had been quick to surround the perimeter, each of them armed with assault weapons whilst one of the haven’s ‘paramedics’ cycled towards the scene with a first aid kit slung over their shoulder. The gathering crowd had quickly dispersed and he could spot families ushering their children into their trailers whilst others were filtering out towards the other districts. “What the fuck just happened?” Coltrane muttered to himself, hand still resting on the point where he typically left his glock neatly tucked into his waistline, whilst Bruce had summarily collapsed back into the couch at the corner of the trailer. “See man, I told you it’s gettin’ fucked around here. These past few days, maybe you noticed the soldiers packing heavy gear like assault rifles or whatever that’s supposed to tell y’all not to fuck about with ‘em. Poor bastard out there was probably just tryna’ talk to ‘em.”

“Are things really this bad?” Coltrane frowned as he looked towards the biker lookalike for answers. “They’re only gonna get worse, man, I tell you.” Without another word, he drew the blinds back in place and moved over towards the bottle of whiskey resting on the kitchen top and lifted it by the neck, again turning back towards Bruce to ask him something. “Still bothered about that drink?” An amused snort was enough of an answer for him and a few minutes later he’d found two glasses to pour their drinks when something else occurred to him. “You like some tunes?” Bruce shrugged indifferently, following it up with a simple “I don’t listen to that hip-hop,” which prompted Coltrane to briefly stare him out with a ‘Did you -really- just say that?’ look, only for Bruce to crack a chuckle towards him and shake his head “I’m fuckin’ with you man.” Of course, Coltrane lightened up and returned the amused gesture “In all fairness, you weren’t exactly wrong.” Now, having passed through that brief and practically non-existent moment of cultural tension, Coltrane fished through the various CD’s and cassette tapes he’d amassed over the years before finally finding one which the both of them could appreciate; Jimi Hendrix. Normally, Coltrane wasn’t a particular fan of rock music but for Hendrix he made an exception and kept several tapes when he found them, in this case slipping a cassette of ‘All Along the Watchtower’ into the ghettoblaster. Passing a glass to Bruce, Coltrane sank back into the couch alongside the biker lookalike who’d become an unlikely friend and decided to enjoy the rest of his evening, finishing up that damned bottle at last.

A few hours later well after the light had finally begun to settle and the dark creeping out from behind the blinds which overshadowed the window, a heavy thud on the door stirred Coltrane and his half-sobered companion from their slightly intoxicated contemplation, eventually prompting him to get up and find out who the hell it was knocking on the door this late into the evening. What he saw was definitely a sobering sight; two Militia soldiers stood outside the door, one of them wielding a Ruger Mini-14 carbine whilst the other slung a Type 56 assault rifle, no doubt to make some kind of a point to those who passed by. The former of the two - a middle aged man who wore a beanie cap alongside a greying beard - addressed him with a clear, straight-to-the-point tone which indicated that at one point in his life he’d been a cop, a soldier or a maybe even a prison guard at some point during his life. “We’re letting everyone in the area know that there’s a curfew coming into place starting from tonight, starting after dark.” With a frown, Coltrane muttered something to himself before eventually deciding to speak up about the situation. “Wait.. are you serious, a curfew? Since when?” Whilst the other soldier - a younger man in his mid thirties - remained silent, the middle aged one responded fairly quickly. “We’re just the messengers here, the government’s made the decision - not us. All we’re trying to do is protect the community, so don’t get on my case for it like every other guy we’ve been delivering the bad news to.” It was only a moment later when it occurred to him that Bruce was still half-drunk, half-asleep and would probably need a hand getting back to his place, and with a quick glance towards the biker lookalike he sighed to himself and spoke up once more. “Look, uh.. my friend’s back there and he’s had a couple drinks to himself and he can’t exactly stay the night here, we’ve got work in the morning and he’ll need his stuff. Can I just give him a hand back to his place and that’ll be it?” Leaning forward, the soldier committed what Coltrane could’ve considered a violation of his privacy if it hadn’t been for the fact that he was peering in to get a look at Bruce, who’d seen a little more of that bottle than Coltrane had and surprisingly seemed to be a lighter drinker than he was. “Fine, just don’t take too long - eventually we’re going to need to start taking in people for it if they keep on acting out.” 

With a summary nod, the two soldiers quickly headed off towards the neighbouring trailer to repeat their routine whilst Coltrane had already moved around to the couch in an effort to rouse Bruce. “C’mon, we’ve gotta head back before they try to book us over this damned curfew.” Eventually he was able to get the man to his feet, albeit he was carrying his weight on one shoulder but it was a better alternative to being caught out by this new law put in place by the government of the community. Stepping outside, the two took several shortcuts through the ‘alleys’ between the various residential trailers and allotments until finally they reached Bruce’s place - which wasn’t that much of an improvement over his own, come to think of it, save for the fact that it had more of a homely and settled-in feeling to it. Bidding the drunken would-be biker a farewell, Coltrane headed back home and on the way he could spot the occasional patrol passing through or someone skulking around in the shadows as if they didn’t want to be seen, and he could tell the curfew was already having an effect on the place. Thinking to himself, it was safe to say that he was less than pleased. Hours earlier he’d seen a man get shot in the street in some kind of struggle with one of the soldiers and now people were being herded inside their homes as if to say that they wanted everyone kept under the rug, a little like how all the inmates in a prison would be sent back to their cells because the warden was afraid of a riot. Climbing back into his own trailer, Coltrane decided that he probably wasn’t going to get a lot of sleep tonight even with an intoxicating amount of whiskey resting in his stomach and decided to stick another one of his Jimi Hendrix tapes on the ghettoblaster until he finally passed out.