Jeurridam Ch. 10: Dredge Valley

"I don't know what to tell you," He said at a loss for words, "It's all rather unexpected. Um, don't stress?"

"Stress? I'm very stressed." I said.

"Well you have one hell of a way of hiding it. You seem so cool and relaxed." He noted.

"I get that a lot." I chuckled. He laughed as well.

We arrived at the hangar where I could make a full assessment of the repairs that need to be made. And there surely were a lot. Never daunted, me and several other mechanics began to the long remapping process before beginning to repair the circuitry. We worked late into the night, stopping only because they exhausted themselves. Hell, I need to recharge as well.

I went to my quarters, catching some well deserved sleep. The next morning came with a surprise. Zeek was there, carrying a big platter of food. Mind you, it was quite early in the morning, like four or so... He seemed happy, too happy.

"Goooood morning!" He said.

"Why?" I asked plainly.

"It's a lovely September morning, don't you think? Make sure you eat all that god damned food!" He said, just insanely cheery. It was upsetting.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" I asked. Zeek was never in a good mood.

"Nothing..." He said, spinning around, "Just wanted to make sure you ate really, really good today."

"You're acting strange..." I noted.

"God, you're such a kill joy. Just be sure to eat... I'm off to work! See you around three-ish." He responded.

"I can't believe you seriously woke me up..." I said, so groggy.

"Eh, you'll get over it." He said, leaving me to the strange silence of the vault. I ate, knowing there was no way I could go back to sleep.

It was not how I planned on starting my day but hell, it was a start. The entire day was finishing the wiring we started the day before. Eventually, the mechanics got to the point that I could merely oversee what they were doing. These were quite the talented people considering most of them were no older than sixteen. With this much teamwork in place, the wiring was finished base-wide, just a little after the noon hour.

Then came the real challenge. The wiring was connected to the old powergrid for now but it was time to build a new one, one that never had to be maintained. I was going to build a fission reactor, one fueled by water. Upon investigation, this place had more than enough material to make one. The rest of the day was spent, putting the design on paper.

Beth and Heaven came into the lobby where I sat, tired from the draining Mojave heat.

"You waste no time in getting busy..." She noted.

"I need to be busy right now." I sighed.

"I don't blame you." She shrugged, warranting a not too pleased look from me, "Sorry..." I didn't bother to respond.

"Zeek's been gone an awfully long time." Heaven noted.

"No later than yesterday. The terrain is tough on the truck. Jeurridam is seventy miles away." Beth shrugged.

"You have a point. He said he's working all week, even the weekends. I bet he's gonna be exhausted, day after day." Heaven responded.

"Hell, what is today? I've lost track." Beth asked.

"It's September fifth." Heaven said. Beth looked at him in surprise before her eyes slowly fell upon me.

"Interesting..." She said. She had that same look in her eyes that Zeek had this morning.

"You better not bug me about it... It's no big deal." I sighed, realizing exactly what this was about.

"I won't, crab..." She teased, not to pleased with how mean I was being lately.

"I've been looking at the greenhouses," Heaven began, oblivious to the special day, "And I think we need to find some rarer crops to harvest and sell. They have plenty of water here, surprisingly but even then, we'd need a separate irrigation system for the greenhouses. Corn is notoriously thirsty, as well as wheat. They do have the space to grow even more plants such as hickory, pecan, other fruit trees. Maybe even a grape orchard."

"Cool." I shrugged, not really caring but pretending as such for his sake.

"What do you think?" He asked.

"I think," I began, now having to really give input, "We should," An idea hit me, one that could change everything, "Map the vaults..."
"Yeah, that's a good idea." He responded.

"Beth, do a search for the network of vaults in Nevada in the mainframe to see whatever comes up." I said. Beth looked at me, sensing there was more to it than for agricultural purposes.

"Why?"

"For agricultural purposes." I smiled. She rolled her eyes, heading to her quarters.

"Sure." She said. With her gone, it left Heaven and I alone. I looked at him, realizing the right side of his lip had a big bruise.

"What happened to your face?" I asked. He blushed, having to look away. He then looked around, seeing that nobody of importance was near. He came over to sit by me, this obviously being a very hushed topic. Something was up...

"That's kind of what I want to talk to you about... It's been killing me." He said, quite nervous.

"Spill." I demanded, going back to drawing.

"Julio kissed me... And not just kissed me... He fucking attacked me with his face!" He said. The way he said it made it sound like he was appalled but there was nothing but smiles and awe written across that face. I rolled my eyes.

"Damn... He didn't even give you any time to get over yourself... Such a Mojave boy." I said shaking my head.

"What? Wait, you knew something was up?" He asked.

"Who didn't?" I asked in response.

"God, am I that blind?" Heaven said, leaning back in the chair, feeling quite stupid.

"Yes..." I replied, "Julio seemed to be quite fond of you ever since that conversation you two had back on the plateau in the wasteland, the one about his and June's parents? Ever since then, you've been oblivious to awkwardly long stares, want in his eyes, and jealousy over you and every other thing that paid you attention. It was just so apparent, except to you."

"I mean, I'm aware of it now." He laughed, quite entertained by my forwardness.

"ZANIIIIIIIRRRRRRR!" Someone shouted, from outside. It was none other than Zeek, that same sickening joy radiating off of him.

"What?" I asked plainly.

"I got a surprise for you!" He said, coming into the lobby.

"What?" I asked, genuinely not liking surprises.

"Just come to the truck." He gestured.

Sighing, I did so, Heaven close behind. We walked across the base to the dry lake bed. We arrived at the back of the truck where a massive cooler was. Zeek opened it, revealing the severed head of a mer.

"OH MY GAWD!!!!!" Heaven screamed, backing away from the terrible site. I looked at Zeek in surprise.

"Happy birthday, bro!" He laughed, feeling it was the perfect gag.

"Wait, today's your birthday?" Heaven asked.

"Yeah," I said, "Zeek, you went back to Dredge Valley?"
"Yeah... Thought it'd be fun to kill one of the dredge beasts and bring you a head." He responded.

"That's just sick! I thought that was a person!" Heaven said, squirming.

"What person do you know is dark bluish-grey?" Zeek asked.

"Hell, I don't know." Heaven laughed.

"Well, it's kind of funny, but since you've brought it, I'm gonna get some samples from this thing and see what it really is." I responded, coming closer to the incredibly creepy head, "Did you kill it?"

"Yeah, sniped one from up the valley, cut off some of the body parts and brought them in the cooler." He said back, "The head's just on top."

"They have a chemical lab with just what I need to understand these creatures. I'm not much of a geneticist but, I should be able to get this creature's genome and cross-reference it." I said, closing the cooler.

Heaven and Zeek carried it back to the facility, up the stairs into the lab. There, Basil was, talking to some of the young chemists about pesticides. Upon seeing us, he came over.

"Hey?" He said, "What do you have, here?"
"My friend brought me a little gift." I smiled, reaching for what I needed from the overhead cabinets.

"That's nice of him," Basil responded as I opened the cooler, "Whoa..." He had to take several steps back.

"Relax. It isn't human." I said, hoping to calm the boy.

"Is it real?" Basil asked, coming forth.

"I killed it." Zeek shrugged.

"What exactly is it?" Basil wondered, looking on curiously.

"That's exactly what I plan on finding out." I said.

It didn't take long for me to isolate samples from the creature and began decoding them with my watch. I cross referenced them with every known creature only to find that these mers were most similar to humans.

"Wow... They share ninety nine point one percent of human DNA." I said.

"That's awfully similar." Basil said, surprised.

"Alarmingly so..." I added.

"What does this mean?" Zeek asked.

"I don't quite know. I'm not sure what to say about these creatures. All I know is that it made me wonder what's in that vault..." I said, thinking hard on the matter.