Background

Makwa is a big man. He’s always been a big man, that’s why Nana named him Bear when he was born. That and a few other things he didn’t learn of until the summer of 2012. Nana, (Robyn as she had been for a number of years by that point) had always been more than a little evasive as to the circumstances of his birth, but he’d never even suspected that she was actually his Great Grandmother and then some, he just thought she was what he had called her ‘Nana’, somebody the Whitsed’s had employed to look after the child that had been abandoned on their doorstep.

Of course that wasn’t the truth of it by half. His reaction to the revelations had been much as she’d expected, anger and resentment. It had also been the point at which he’d insisted they return to Poplar River. When Robyn had tried to argue against it, he’d left in a fit of anger and pique, traveling alone for the next 4 months, before Robyn had ‘caught’ up with him, except that had been another deception as she’d followed him discretely for 2 months having caught up with him, secretly keeping tabs on him, until his anger at her and his resentment had faded, and he’d rationalised why she had done what she’d done.

In many ways, hiding his past from him had probably been harder on her than on him, and waiting to ‘reveal all’ until he could process it all in context must have been a difficult path for her to tread, after all it was her daughter, his mother who’d been raped and discarded like a piece of trash, by the piece of Amberite trash that had raped her. What is worse, is that that piece of trash is his father, and his name was Raif.

In hindsight he shouldn’t have taken those memories from her. They were just too painful to relive, and yet she had bourn them for all those years. It was a guilt that he was going to have to live with. Yes he could erase the fact that he’d taken them, she had taught him how to do that, how to manipulate minds, how to control those whose will was weaker than his, and he’d used that power against her, the person who’d taught him everything he’d wanted to learn as he’d become capable of learning it, the person who’d protected him when his shapeshifting ability had first manifested itself, when he’d been incapable of controlling it.

That had been a difficult few months for both of them, as had the year in which he’d turned 14 and suffered the full effects of puberty. In that first year, the year he’d turned 6, he’d first learnt that Nana had the same ability as he had, the one to change shape, the one to become almost any animal or person you wanted, provided you put the effort in to studying them and to practicing. It was also the year he learnt how different he was to the humans who surrounded them on all sides, and how they would fear him if they learnt the truth, especially if he assumed his real form, not the one they were both forced to masquerade in.

Until the ‘revelation’ he had believed both his adopted parents and Nana’s story; that an unknown girl had been seen running from the property, having left a new born child on the doorstep. Afterwards he knew that for the charade that it was. After Raif serially raped and abused his mother, her being a worthless Chaosite in his eyes, a view that was rampant in the Courts at the time that Meriel ‘left’ (Amberites were seen to view Chaosites as worthless and would tend to kill Chaosites on sight), he tried to kill her. The problem was, in his superior arrogance he forgot about her ability to go primal. So as he went to shoot her in the head, she went primal, and in doing so escaped, turning up at Nana’s in a very sorry state. Nana read her memories and in doing so recognised who was responsible, but knew she didn’t have the ability to confront Raif. However, she could hide her daughter where Raif wouldn’t be able to find her, assuming he came looking, which is what she did.

It was weeks later that Wenonah discovered she was pregnant, and in that moment Nana realised there was a possible way back to the Courts and not as a mere servant. It would take time for the plan to work and it would require Wenonah both to continue with the pregnancy, and to give up the child, so that even if Raif did come looking there would be no child for him to discover. Thus it came about that Nana selected a ‘nice’ childless Canadian couple that lived on the Reservation borders in Poplar River, and then conspired to leave the new born on their doorstep. Her relationship with them as a ‘dependable’ housekeeper/cleaner having been established a couple of months before hand.

So began Makwa’s life as he was to know it until January 2004. As a young child he wasn’t at all at home inside in a school. He much preferred to be outdoors on the Reservation; either with Nana, his adopted mother, or others of Nana’s tribe (well that’s who he thought they work at the time, members of the Obijwe First Nation).

And then it happened. Both he and Nana awoke within minutes of each other shortly after 05:36am on the 5th January (Poplar River is 1 hour ahead of Yellowstone), although it wouldn’t be until shortly after 1:30pm before they understood why. It was at that point that the Canadian Government declared martial law post the evidence that the Yellowstone super volcano was likely building to an eruption in somewhere between 48 and 72 hours, except that at approximately the same time the Cascadia Fault slipped by 52cm. That slip would trigger a 1.7m drop in the North American plate along the Oregon/Washington/British Colombia coast, and trigger a 74ft tsunami that would strike the Coast of those areas before 2pm.

The slip would also cause a major destabilization of the San Andreas fault complex, and the tsunami would flood and destroy large areas of San Francisco. Additionally the Tsunami, although much smaller, would cross the Pacific and strike major areas of Asian population some 9 hours later. This was the first of 2 Tsunamis that would strike the North American Continent. The second would strike the East coast at 13:17 on the 6th, after Cumbre Vieja explodes at 15:37 (local time) on the 5th. This 50ft wall of water would inundate and destroy everything East of the Appalachians below 70ft above sea level, including large areas of eastern South Carolina, eastern and southern Georgia, and most of Florida.

Unaware at that point of other unfolding events, the declaration of Martial Law and the imminent eruption of Yellowstone was of most concern to both Nana and his parents. His parents couldn’t go anywhere. They had jobs to do. One of the major effects of the declaration was that Winnipeg was to be evacuated as much as possible but under military control. Other major towns in southern and western Manitoba were also to be evacuated. Everyone else was supposed to remain where they were for the time being. All power generation and supply facilities were placed under military authority and all employees of such companies were now subject to military authority. The same was true of all fuel supply facilities.

Having managed to download a predicted ashfall map, prior to the internet crashing, Nana had other ideas. They needed to head North, at least as far as the First Nation Reservation of Byrd, but they’d need to push hard to reach it, and hope the ice on the lakes were good. She would have to trust the river (Nelson River) like in the past, and use the power line maintenance and service roads where the river was bad.. They were the most direct route. It would be an early start in the morning and they’d need both dog teams; hers and Elizabeth’s.

That first day was hard on Makwa. 11 hours running the team, but the ice on Lake Winniepeg was good, and they made Nana’s target stop, Whisky Jack Landing. The second day was much harder for other reasons, mainly to do with picking their way along the Nelson river, firstly to avoid the Hydro Station at Jenpeg, and then to traverse the rapids when it narrowed. They barely made 65km that day and were forced to camp on one of the islands mid-stream. Day 3 was as bad if not worse with 3 sets of rapids requiring Nana to manhandle the sleds down rocky outcrops one at a time. Progress was much better after that and they arrived in Split Lake (Tataskweyak Cree Nation) on the evening of the fifth day, the scent of brimstone clear in the cold of the evening air and the feint hint of volcanic ash starting to appear.

They were forced to spend the rest of January in Split Lake, Nana wouldn’t risk the dogs and the haulers not wanting to risk damage to their rigs. For the denizens of North Manitoba, waiting out a winter was nothing new. Their food stocks would last a couple of months before they would begin to worry. As January turned to February people decided to move North. Trucks were assembled. On the morning of 4th February the convoy set out for Bird. People would either wait out the summer there, or depending on what they found attempt to reach Churchill, although that would require the rail link to still be functioning.

Nana favoured a different option, use the Nelson River to reach Hudson bay and then head south and east circumnavigating the bay. Nana and Makwa left Bird the following day reaching the old York factory site by evening. From there it was 4 days to Fort Severn, and then 9 to Attawapiskat after resting the dogs for a day. They stayed there to rest the dogs for 5 days before heading south down the Albany River, first to Pagwa River, and then via Hillsport to Manitouwadge, reaching the latter on the 12th of March.

Whilst the evidence of the ash fall became more pronounced the further south they went, the skies remained as dark as they had been in early January, and if anything the temperatures were now colder than they had been a month earlier. They left the dogs in Manitou and after a lift to Pic River set out on foot across the still frozen Lake Superior; which wouldn’t thaw till the summer of 2006. It took them 11 days to cross to Eagle Harbour from where Nana turned East. They would circumnavigate the shoreline to the lake as the effects of the ash were significantly less along the shore line, arriving in Marquette on the 9th April, scavenging what food they could from abandoned properties along the coast when the opportunity presented itself.

For the most part Nana avoided trouble, but as the days ticked by so did the number of bodies. The stop in Marquette at least did two things; it gave them valid US documents, and allowed Nana to restock her diminishing supply of arrows. Her bow didn’t make a noise like using the rifle or a pistol did. From Marquette they followed the coast till AuTrain then cut south to the southern edge of Munsing before heading south down NF-13. Cutting through the central lakes cluster they picked up route 437 and headed south once more before cutting across route 442/149 to skirt the southern edge of Indian lake before entering and traversing central Manistique. Across the river they cut north making use of the rail track they cut through to Michibay drive, where short of Rocky point Nana found, by use of her Guiding Compass spell, a small launch that would enable them, with some considerable effort both at the start, and near the southern end of Lake Michigan to cross the lake, abandoning the launch in the lake at the ‘ice border’ some 30km off shore of Warren Dunes State Park.

Even then in late April it was still as cold as in early January with regular snow falls which at least kept the air clear of ash and kept it firmly encased as they traversed the devastated landscape. They approximately followed the Michigan Indiana state border heading East avoiding both South Bend and Elkhart before turning south-east through Aubum and Defiance. They passed Wooster in Mid-May heading towards Pittsburgh.

They crossed the Youghiogheny River, the gateway to the Appalachians on the 22nd May, and continued east. Now averaging about 27km per day, using the Chesapeake-Ohio canal towpath and then the Appalachian National Trail they continued east and south, reaching the Stony Man Summit and Skyland on the 6th June.

The following morning Nana opted to steal a pickup and make use of it. Even a vehicle with little fuel would make the descent of the mountain much faster than a descent on foot. They made 150km reaching the Rockfish Gap Turnpike before the fuel gave out forcing them to abandon the vehicle. They made another 12km on foot before acquiring entry to yet another abandoned residence for the night.

By this point Makwa had learnt to trust Nana’s magic compass, even if she had to recast the spell on a daily basis. 5 days later they reached one of the crisis refugee centres at Longwood University in Farmville, Virginia, where they spent 3 days allowing Nana to recharge, determine where their next and final stop would be, and acquire Federal Authority to acquire and rebuild the property. It also allowed them to restock their meagre food supplies by cashing some of their unspent ratio entitlement that they hadn’t claimed since it they crossed the Canadian border. It also allowed Nana to assume her new identity Robyn Waishkey.

From Farmville they continued south and east, reaching Northbend park a little above the John H Kerr dam, which turned the Roanoke River into the John H Kerr Resevoir. Robyn again borrowed a boat enabling then to make the 60km crossing to the southern shore at the top end of Spring Valley Lake Road by nightfall, where Nana had them invited to stay as guests for the evening. Two days later saw them reach Louisburg, Robyn having the previous evening unpacked and repacked all their gear, one element of which was the second sled base stacked atop the first, she’d been pulling since they’d started their journey across Lake Superior. It also meant that for the first time Makwa now also had a sled to pull.

There were a couple more stops in Louisburg as Robyn stocked up on seeds, tools, food, and clothes from what was available. There would be a couple more stops over the next couple of days to put in place arrangements for the following year and to acquire more seeds, although those that Robyn wanted were in very limited supply; apparently nobody grew them commercially in this part of the world, as normally they weren’t suited to the climate. So it was that on the late morning of the 26th June they entered the battered landscape of what was to be their home until the late autumn of 2012. Makwa couldn’t believe that Robyn had brought them to this. In the meagre ‘summer’ heat, barely reaching 18C, the air stank of a mixture of stagnating salt water and rotting vegetation. Their final destination, what appeared to once have been some sort of ‘flower nursery’, whilst not taking the force of the tidal wave given its position in the lee of Interstate-40 and close to the limit of the wave height, it had obviously been partially submerged and significantly damaged in the process. Their first task that afternoon was to bury the decaying remains of the former occupants found in the badly damaged house, before moving to making it habitable.

Robyn spent the next week burying bodies, those from neighbouring properties and those unfortunate enough to have been caught at the Thermo King depot. Most of the trailers were unserviceable in a heap against the house on the opposite side of the compound to I-40, but there were a couple that might be usable and a rig that might also be salvageable if she could locate a mechanic. Of more interest though was whether she could salvage anything from the Agricultural Equipment Supplier that had been 1km on the opposite side of the I-40. This would over the next few weeks yield 3 tractors with forks and trailers, 4 2Wheel Tractors, a rig and trailer, and hand cranked diesel pump, which in turn would prove invaluable in extracting the diesel from the wrecked service stations either side of I-40 on what was the former Route-42. Salvaging these would only be possible with the arrival of Blake Sterling some 12 days later. Sterling would over the next few years serve as Makwa’s tutor, teaching him vehicle and truck mechanics, welding, and a whole host of other skills useful in salvaging materials from the local environment. Sterling was additionally another Chosite, one to whom Nana would leave the Market Garden when they left.

Whilst Robyn toiled burying bodies Makwa spent his time salvaging anything immediately useful from the neighbouring properties, attempting put the house back into a usable state,and then commenced sowing seeds as Nana had shown him in pots using the soil she’d cleansed of Salt Water contamination. It would be another week before she would be able to have the time to purify the lake, by which point they’d sown several hundred seeds, and Robyn had used a growth accelerator to boost their growth rate. By the point the seedlings were ready to plant out they’d managed to get one of the poly-tunnels serviceable.

Even with the growth accelerator Robyn wasn’t 100% sure they’d get a harvest good enough to see them through the winter. In the end they did considerably better than Nana expected and they managed 3 harvests before day time temperatures dropped to the point that even the winter cabbage and kale stopped growing even under the shelter of the poly-tunnels.

That first winter was exceptionally hard for their small community of 7, all Chaosites, who, other than Blake, arrived between the end of August and the beginning of December. They foraged as they could in the devastated remains of the former township of Wilson, stockpiling everything they could in the hope it would see them through both the current winter and as many months as necessary till the climate recovered. At least by Christmas the ash stopped falling.

In some respects things improved in the second year, the weather was marginally better and they were able to put a large portion of the estate back into production by rebuilding most of the polytunnels. The lack of power was the major issue, but they were able to salvage 4 of the fire trucks and a significant amount of equipment from the local fire stations, which at least gave them radio communications with the authorities in Raleigh, and via that medium delivery of both food and fuel, even if they were heavily rationed. The downside of this was that they had to give up 70% of their own harvest.

Makwa spent a portion of the year in hiding as he went through puberty as he fought to regain control of his shapeshifting ability. At least amongst a community of Choasites he didn’t have to hide completely away as he’d been forced to do in the year he’d turned 6. After securing a Federal Govt grant in the form of another square kilometre worth of polytunnels they expanded in 2007.The former Thermo King Warehouse became a storage facility and they added another warehouse and several more sheds as they expanded to start farming some of the land in the valley either side of Route-42. They also regained power after they were reconnected to the grid in late June.

2008 saw a return to near normal climate conditions and a further expansion in both the farming and vehicle salvage and repair business, and in the number of workers needed to support the increase. As the years ticked by conditions improved, the business, workforce, and area of land farmed expanded as new version of normality returned. Robyn was content to stay put but Makwa became more and more discounted, both with Nana and her stories, and with wanting to know what happened to his adoptive parents.

In the summer of 2012 it all came to a head and Robyn was forced to reveal the whole truth about who his mother really was, who his father really was, who she really was, and that most of the stories she’d told related to a place that were called the Courts, that really existed in another universe, where things were different, and where time flowed much faster than this Earth.

Present:

29th March 2013

Makwa and Robyn reach Popular River. The town is deserted. About 40% of the buildings have collapsed under the influence of ash, snow, and ice, whilst the remainder are all showing signs of having been unoccupied for the best part of 10 years.

They make their way to Makwa’s former home. Whilst some of the outbuildings have collapsed the main house is mostly intact. Robyn ventures inside whilst Makwa finds himself torn. This place was his home, yet now it doesn’t feel like home at all. Robyn had been right, they shouldn’t have returned here. It was time for him to stop living in the past, time to move on. The question was where?

That would be a question for tomorrow or the day after. The dogs at least deserved a rest. They would stay in the house a couple of days and then leave. That would require removal of a few years of dust. They set about cleaning the kitchen and 2 of the bedrooms.

30th March 2013 07:05am

Makwa woke early and made his way down to the kitchen. As he entered he froze. There was what looked like an envelope on the kitchen table. It had not been there last night and the dogs hadn’t reacted to anything in the vicinity. He called up to Robyn, who joined him slightly bleary eyed. She walked over to the table, picked the envelope up and handed it to him “It’s addressed to you!”

“What do you mean? Addressed to me?” Robyn handed him the envelope.

It wasn’t an envelope as such, but a piece of parchment whose corners had been folded in to form an envelope, and then sealed with wax. Who did such things any longer? His name was handwritten in ink on the front, just his name, no address, and no postmark. He broke the seal and looked inside. The paper felt strange as he turned it over.

“Makwa Kikkenintiso Esquire you are here by invited as my personal guest to the Mizzurian Expo (May 2nd – 5th) and Grand Expo Ball (4th May 8:00pm). As my personal guest you will be staying at my residence in Carnelian and all transfer to and from the Expo will be catered for. I will be on hand to personally collect you at 1:40 pm on Monday 29th April. Sincerely yours Cordelia Chan (President and CEO Mizzurian Corporation). Please ensure you have this invitation with you on the day.”

Stunned to silence he handed the invite to Robyn. She read it as he had unsure of what to make of it. He spoke first, “So what do you think? Who on earth is she? Who are Mizzurian?”

“No idea who she is other than who she says she is if the invite is correct. Don’t really know much about the Company. They have some connection to the restoration in Roanoke, or at least by what I learnt they now run the city. As to what I think, it’s your invite but if it were me I’d probably go just to find out the what and why”

“But how? There’s no RSVP, no instructions. Nothing!”

“Not quite. It says ‘Please ensure you have this invitation with you on the day.’, so it’s tied to the invite somehow. If she, assuming that she delivered the invite, can find you all the way out here, and deliver it without alerting the dogs, then I’m sure she can find you where ever. On which note, have you come to a decision?”

“Yes. You were right as always. There’s nothing here but ghosts, but where?”

“Not sure. Winnipeg is a bust as are most places East of here. I’ve had enough of freezing, but Virginia is a long way off. Let’s head for Superior and see what we find.”

12th April 2013 16:13

Makwa and Robyn arrive Wauzhushk Onigum Community centre (Kenora 33B: Wauzhushk Onigum First Nation Reserve). It seems to be that Kenora is the new ‘Hub’ taking over the role that Winnipeg used to hold. The train station has been expanded considerably to cope with the increased freight traffic terminating here. Whilst the rail track west ward into Winnipeg has been mostly restored, and the Trans-Canada highway cleared, most of the support operations for all the hydro-power plants are being run out of Kenora. The current cost of restoring and rebuilding Winnipeg is currently just too large, hence Kenora which served as the main evacuation and refugee centre has taken over Winnipegs’s central state ‘capital’ role.

Robyn, because of who she really is, uses her renown to secure them a temporary residence until she can select a site and have her own residence built (which will be approximately at this location 49.7160016,-94.4338976), although that will take the best part of a year to do.