3.7 KiB
Jack drives into a dried-out river. A bit away from the other side is a group of houses that - while they have certainly seen better days - aren’t ruins. The truck struggles to get traction in the sand on the other side of the river bed. After getting stuck, he backs up and turns into the river. He accelerates, the engine roars, then he steers it back onto the side of the river. The truck gets stuck again. This process repeats twice more before they finally make it out and back onto the tall grass that covers the area. Jack drives over to the remains of a road that lead to the settlement.
He parks in front of an old store. "This is it, I guess."
They get out and start walking towards the door. A small dog runs up to greet them, jumping around, running in circles, and wagging its tail. It picks up a stick and drops it in front of Annie. She crouches down, pets the dog, and picks up the stick. The dog bites into the other end and pulls on it.
note: need reason for Jack to go ahead, also better wording
"I’ll be inside." Jack goes into the store.
note: need to state that the man appears to be in his 60s
After playing with the dog for a bit, Annie follows. The man behind the counter is talking to Jack:
"I mean in the long run. We have plenty of food right now but, since the has changed course, we don’t even have enough water to grow crops for ourselves. The cisterns and wells simply don’t cut it."
"So, basically, you’re saying you need water."
The man interrupts the conversation and looks at Annie:
"Good afternoon, what can I do for you?"
"I’m with him."
"I see." He turns back to Jack: "Listen, we don’t just need a little bit of water. The amount of water we need can’t simply be carried here or we’d do it ourselves. And we need it regularly and consistently. When the still flowed here, water userd to flow into our irrigation system upstream and got distributed to all the fields and greenhouses from there."
"I know you need an industrial quantity of water. We can get you an industrial quantity of water. Will you give us food if we supply you?"
He musters Jack for a moment. "And how do you wanna get it here?"
"By train - assuming the railroad south of here is in a serviceable state." Seeing the man’s confusion, Jack adds: "Let that be my problem to solve. Will you trade water for food?"
"I’m gonna have to discuss that with the others. Wait outside."
After playing with the dog some more, they get approached by a group of people, amongst them the man from the store. They shake hands. Jack repeats his idea to supply water by train in exchange for crops.
"What’s this train you’re talking of?", one of them asks.
"A large vehicle from the old world. It drives on tracks like the ones that should be south of here."
"So that’s what these rails were used for... But that’s still pretty far from here, how do you wanna transport the water here?"
"That irrigation system of yours... Can we take a look at it?"
"I see where you’re trying to go with this. It’s still not particularly close to the rails."
After a bit of additional back and forth, they agree on a plan. The man who did most of the talking asks a girl:
"Mary, can you go, show them around?"
"Sure, follow me."
"Wait", Jack stops her, "We’re here with a truck."
"So that’s your car? Cool! I’ve only ever seen one working car in the city. So we’re gonna drive there?"
"If you show us the way."
"Let’s go!"
Not sure of this should be the end of a chapter or if I should continue here. The way this has turned out, it would also be nice if they ended up delivering construction machines (excavators, etc.) to the village so they don’t need to rely on water shipments past the day when the protagonists leave for Nova Metropolis.