Samuel stepped forward. “I could ask you the same.”
The man guffawed. “You do not own this place. It is our territory, and you are infringing on it.”
“Look,” Samuel said, “I don’t know who you think you are, but those things are out there and we had nowhere else to go. If you’re telling us to leave, you’re just going to have to make us. It’s five against however many you have, and we all have guns. Your call.”
That shut the man up. I heard two more voices whispering out there, one a woman’s. We all had our guns out, ready to go.
“Look,” Samuel said. “There’s no point in fighting. We don’t want to harm you, and we hope you don’t want to harm us. We’ll just wait for these things to go away and we’ll be out of your hair.”
“The monsters you brought to us,” the man outside said. “They’re not leaving. All of us are stuck here, thanks to you.”
“We had no choice!” Samuel yelled. “What would you expect me to do, drive out there until they overwhelmed us?”
“That would have been nice,” the man said.
“I’m tired of this,” Lisa said, taking out her handgun. “Let’s just kill them while we can.”
Apparently, the man outside heard that. “That door moves so much as an inch, we’re firing.”
“Lisa, take it easy,” Samuel said. “Let me handle this.” Samuel turned back to the door. “Maybe we can work together.”
“I want to know who you are first, Raider,” the man said, “before I even entertain that notion.”
“We are not Raiders,” Samuel said.
“Really. Who are you? You’re Wastelanders, with guns and attitudes. That makes you Raiders to my eyes.”
“We are on a mission sanctioned by the United States government,” I said.
That made the man go quiet. There were more whispers.
“There is no U.S. government,” the woman said. “All the Bunkers are gone.”
Maybe that was true. Two of the remaining four had fallen in the last month, including Bunker 108, which had once been my home.
“There are two Bunkers left,” I said. “As far as I know.”
“Like I said, there is no United States,” the woman insisted. “The United States fell with the death of President Garland in 2048. There is only the Empire.”
“Quiet,” the man outside growled.
“So you’re with the Empire?” Samuel asked.
“It does not matter who we’re with,” the man snapped. “We’re the ones asking the questions.”
“We have more guns,” Samuel said. “We ask the questions.”
“You’re locked in,” the man said. “I’d like to see how your ‘more guns’ works out.”
“This is pointless,” I said, only loud enough for those with me to hear. “We need to get them on our side somehow so we can get out of here. Empire or not, all of us are surrounded by an army of monsters.”
“What if they’re going after the Bunker?” Lisa asked. “You remember what the Wanderer said.”
“I’m working on that,” Samuel said. “But we cannot appear weak. We have the numbers advantage.”
Samuel turned back to the door.
“Those things are outside, and we’re not getting anywhere by fighting. We need to work together. As soon as we can clear these monsters off, the sooner we can leave.”
The man laughed. “Clear them off? Maybe you haven’t noticed, but there are thousands of them out there. You’re stuck here, just like us. Coming into the Great Blight was a mistake. We’re all in so much shit that there is no hope of getting out.”
“Maybe working together isn’t such a bad idea,” the woman said.
“How many of you are there?” Samuel asked. “Sounded like more than just the two of you.”
“We’re three,” the woman said. “Drake doesn’t talk much.”
A deep grunt answered that statement — I assumed from Drake.
“So, we’re cool?” Samuel asked. “Are we working together?”
“Fine,” the man said. “There’s no point in fighting. Just know that when you came in here, guns blazing, I erred on the side of shooting first.”
“That’s understandable,” Samuel said. “Am I good to open the door?”
“Go right ahead,” the man said. “We won’t shoot. Just keep your guns to yourself.”
Makara grabbed Samuel’s arm. “No.”
“Makara, I have to do this. Otherwise there’s no other way out.”
She bit her lip. I didn’t blame her for being worried. This could all be a ruse. Then again, what choice did we have?
“We’re here to back you up in case anything happens,” I said.
Samuel nodded. “Thanks.”
He turned to the door, holstering his pistol.
“Alright,” Samuel said. “My gun’s at my side, and I’m opening the door.”
He unlatched it with a clang. After taking a deep breath, he pulled it open.
For a few seconds, nothing happened. There was a moment of tension as we all watched to see what came next. Nothing did. A hand reached across the door’s threshold.
“I’m Harland,” the man who had been talking said. “This is Kris, and Drake.”
Samuel didn’t react much, not taking the offered hand. “I’m Samuel. There’s Makara, Lisa, Anna, and Alex.”
Samuel looked at us, motioning us to stand by the door.
Makara holstered her pistol, and the rest of us followed her lead. Lisa put her handgun away with a scowl, her sniper rifle still latched onto her back. Anna sheathed her katana, not looking too happy about it.
“So is there any way out of here?” Samuel asked.
“Not that we know,” Harland said.
Now that the door was open, I saw what each of them looked like. Harland was a black man, well-muscled and garbed in desert camo. He looked more government than I did. An AR-15 was slung across his back, and his face carried a hard and determined expression. Kris was a short yet pretty woman with blonde hair and blue eyes, also dressed in desert camo. Drake was large, muscular, and white as a ghost, wearing a stained white tank top and camo pants. He had two pistols holstered on either side, and, curiously, three long javelins pointing up from his back. His left arm bore a tattoo with simple Roman numerals: “XIII.” His face was tough, solid, and carried several deep scars.
They were sizing us up, too. I’m sure they thought I wasn’t tough, based off my age, but I had learned a lot in the past three weeks. I’d grown tougher in the past three weeks than in the past three years.
“How long have you guys been here?” Samuel asked.
“Two weeks,” Kris said, shaking a blonde bang out of her eye. “And we’ve been trying to figure out how to get out ever since. The land will look empty occasionally. But every time we try to leave, they come out, sending us back here.”
“You guys Empire?” Samuel asked.
The three looked at each other for a moment.
“Yeah, we are,” Harland said. “No point in trying to hide it.”
“Bunker crawlers, are you?”
“What does it matter?” Harland asked. “I can see you guys are the same. No other reason for you to be here. I don’t know if you are working for the United States, as you claim, but whatever we find in the Bunker is ours.”
Anna, Lisa, and Makara stepped forward, reaching for their weapons. The three Novans backed off, reaching for theirs.
“Stop!” I said. “You all are going to kill each other — over what? No one’s making it to the Bunker anyway unless we can get out of this.” I looked from our group to the other. “Maybe we can help each other out.”
“Well,” Harland said, “the Bunker isn’t far. Just downstairs, in fact. You guys were right on the money as far as making it.”