“Stand. The Hell. Back.” The tall Enforcer Agent was only inches from the others face. “I won't ask you again, bud.”
Alex had been at it for over an hour, the Second Watch, or more appropriately this time around, “babysitter duty”, as news of the supposedly secretive operation was spilled and swept through the Refuge like a wildfire. Lawkeepers were needed at various points just to keep those with crazy ideas from, in fact, executing those crazy ideas. Just when you thought the community was large enough for rumors to thin their way out to the point of fading into the wasteland backdrop, they do just the opposite. Freakin’ people with nothing better to do than gossip about shit they didn't fully understood anyway. And what's worse? Half of them don't even have their story straight.
“Look people.” Alex raised his hand hoping to grab the multitudes attention, his voice becoming slightly hoarse from a mixture of the cool dry air and having to speak over the crowds. “You've heard the call from Command but we need to keep cool while they finish sorting out who's going where.”
He and the other Lawkeepers didn't expect a sudden rush of volunteers, but people were still antsy nonetheless, especially those who've been stuck behind the walls for awhile. Alex, however, had only been a part of the community for less than a month, settling down nicely in a three-story tenement that had probably seen better days before the world went sideways. Before. When society took things like water, food, and toothpaste for granted, and paid obscene amounts of money for a cup of hot joe on our way to a job we didn't really like. In retrospect, he wished he'd had a job back then that was more the equivalent of a daily grind, than a “hired gun” since you never really knew if you'd make it home with the latter career choice. But, the choice really wasn't his and he paid for that mistake in more ways than he'd ever care to admit. On the bright side, he supposed, life gave him rotten lemons, so he took those lemons and made several gallons of deadly lemonade, distributing a tall glass in the form of a bullet to each of the lowlifes who decided it was a good idea to destroy his family. The blood that day wouldn't wash away, but he didn't want it to because he never wanted to forget who or what he was fighting for.
Alex couldn't figure out why anyone would want to leave Refuge, but it was a necessary suicide mission he supposed. He'd been fine behind the safety of the walls, eeking out a life, or at least surviving long to have a possible future life. He'd been living a partial lie since entering through the gates of Refuge dressed in the guise of a prison law enforcement officer, the ruse continued, which allowed him a position into the Lawkeepers, an ironic twist considering his many years as a mafia gunman. Alex TreVayne wasn't a model citizen, nor did he necessarily believe what he was presently doing would make any difference in the end, but he was there to help wherever he was needed nevertheless, and hopefully atone for a past life of bloodshed.
Fuzzybootz,
Hari,
Iracebeth,
Jumbus