Resistance 3 - Chapter 1

1.

“I’ll miss you too, Nate,” Meghan said as the train rumbled slowly into the station.  “I mean, I really will,” she repeated emphatically.  “I wish I didn’t have to come at all.”

“It’s good to see your family, “ Nate encouraged on the other end of the line.  

“I’m just arriving now,” Meghan evasively non-answered. 

“OK, I’ll let you go then,” Nate replied affably.  If he noticed her failure to directly respond, he didn’t let on.  “But hey, listen, real quick… about this whole “confession” thing…

“You really don’t have to.”

“I know,” she said.  “But I want to.”  Meghan didn’t know how true that really was and inwardly kicked herself for not taking advantage of this proffered release.  At the time she’d proposed it, it seemed to make sense.  Poetic, almost.  While they were physically separated by distance, it would be easier to open up and share some things that would bring them emotionally closer together.

Except, would they..?

“All right, well, I’m here now.  We can talk about it some more later.  I’ll call you when I get to the house.”  They said their goodbyes and Meghan hung up the phone with her boyfriend as the train lurched to a halt.

She pulled her suitcase from compartment above her seat, jostling between the other passengers disembarking.  Her stomach felt a little queasy, and she knew it wasn’t solely just because this was the second rail trip she’d ever taken.

It was strange, she reflected as she rolled her suitcase down the platform, heading for the exit.  How dramatically things could change in a few short years’ time.  So many things she’d never done, never seen before her 18th birthday, now commonplace.

Of course, it wasn’t as though they were starting from scratch; all of the infrastructure, all of the technology, all of the production that had ground to a halt in the “Lost Years” hadn’t gone away -- it had simply been neglected, discarded, languishing in the wayside until humanity had found its way back to pick up the pieces.

For the older generation, it was a resumption; a returning to a life they had once known.  But for the ones in their 20’s, like Meghan, and younger, it was the opposite; a departure from all they’d ever known, every day revealing a new surprise, some unfamiliar experience that older people knew all about already.  Like riding a train.  Or buying a ticket to ride a train.  Like the concept of money to buy a ticket.  Going to the store and buying food, as much as you wanted (or could afford) and whatever you wanted, instead of waiting in line for rations.

The list went on and on.

How it nice it must be, Meghan thought, with some bitterness and envy that she knew were motivated by other things, the things that were also contributing to her increasingly queasy, knotted stomach.  To be able to just pick up your life where you left off.  To forget everything that happened in between.

To be fair, not everyone her age felt the same.  And even Meghan herself didn’t feel as though she wished she could forget her whole life in its entirety.  But a few years… If she could block a few years out…

“Meghan!”

She looked about and saw her mother, standing beside the family car, arm waving.  Taking a deep breath, Meghan began walking over, her suitcase rolling noisily behind her.

“Hi, Mom,” she said.  Meghan stiffened slightly as her mother wrapped her arms around her.  

“Oh, it’s good to see you, honey!  It’s been too long.”

Meghan didn’t answer, turning from the embrace, rolling her bag around the car to the trunk, loading it in herself.  She opened the passenger side door.

“Let’s go,” she said, softly, not with hostility or spite, but quiet reluctance.

Without waiting for a response, she slid into the car.  Her mother hesitated slightly and then got in as well and drove away.

***

“You might not see your father,” her mother remarked as she turned onto the highway.  “He is so disappointed but you know how busy he is these days…”

“I see him all the time anyway,” Meghan responded.  She could see her mother at the wheel give her a sidelong glance as she focused on the road.

“On television doesn’t count.”  There was a note of slight reprimand in her mother’s voice, but otherwise it was gentle.  Conciliatory, even.  “Maybe if you were to come visit more often…”

“I’m busy with school, Mom.”

“I don’t know why you had to pick a school so far away, anyway…  Things have settled down, but I wouldn’t exactly call it stable… We worry with you being all the way over there.”

“Well, I go to school where I go to school.  I’d have thought you’d be happy I went at all…”

“Meghan, that’s not nice.  Your brother is just going through a rough spot.”

Meghan said nothing as they rode in silence.  She gave her mother a sidelong glance of her own.  She looked older than Meghan recalled.  Not as old as she had looked before…  before everything had happened…  But neither did she look like the young, fresh faced blonde she had been.

The one Meghan still saw in her dreams sometimes.

She shivered slightly.  

“I’m going to hit the gym when we get home, if that’s alright,” Meghan announced abruptly.

“Sure, dear,” her mother replied, and although it sounded like she might want to say more, they rode the rest of the way home in silence.

***

Meghan breathed hard as she entered the locker room.  She had worked out at a frenetic, intense pace, and felt slightly better as she stripped down, heading toward the showers, naked, sweating.  She would not have been self conscious about doing so in front of others, but the point was moot; the locker room was totally empty.  The gym itself had been barely occupied, only herself and a pair of guys lifting weights in one corner.

It was a little shocking how quickly people had let themselves go to seed.  In the immediate aftermath, everyone had started off more or less the same: young, healthy, fit.  Most had not done what it took to maintain their phenomenal physiques in the absence of the Legacy Virus’ incredible enhancing effects.  Only a few short years later and the virus’ imprint on society was already fast fading, most of the population appearing average, or even beginning to border on overweight.

Meghan would never let that happen to herself, she resolved for the umpteenth time as she showered off under the steaming water, running her lathery hands over the fit, taut muscles of her arms and shoulders, her long toned legs, her flat stomach, her large, supple breasts.

The intervening years had not diminished the anguish of her pre-infection memories of being out of shape, flabby.  Plain.  Unnoticed, undesired, save for cruel mockery.

Never again, she told herself.  Never again.

She dried herself off and got dressed, looking at her own reflection as she towelled off her long, blonde hair.  The large, luminous blue eyes stared back at her, her lips still lush and full.  Objectively and without bias or conceit, she was beautiful.

It was only confirmed a short time later as she walked back home from the gym, as two men in dark blue uniforms saw her from across the street.

“GDC!  Halt!”

Meghan came to a stop on the sidewalk as the pair crossed the street towards her, one of them holding a rifle trained on her.

“Hold out your finger,” the other soldier barked, a small device held in his outstretched hand.

Meghan stuck her index finger into the silver metal device, wincing slightly as it pierced her skin, extracting a single drop of blood. 

The soldier looked down at his device as a green light lit up.  “She’s clean.”

“She is..?”  The other soldier let his rifle down slowly, openly admiring Meghan’s physique.  “Damn, girl, you keep up the good work!”

“Can I go?” Meghan blankly asked the soldier with the device, ignoring the other one altogether.

“Yea, go on, get outta here.”

Meghan walked past the pair as they headed off in the opposite direction, the soldier with the rifle repeatedly turning back around to admire her.

Why did I even come back here, she thought to herself.