The Dawn: The Bombs Fall (A Dystopian Science Fiction Series) Read Online Free PDF Page B

always took a while for his
eyes to adjust. There were several tables filled with silent drinkers, even
those in company were mute, choosing not to speak. What was there to say?
    There were a few children who had
been born since the war, some above and some below ground. Those below ground
bore the scars of a war which people didn't understand. Misshapen heads,
missing limbs, bad teeth, swollen throats. The birth of a child didn’t bring
new hope anymore. It didn’t bring a future of promise. Instead it raised every
question that every one of the 1984 people who were stuck in Delta tower when
the bombs landed had asked themselves over and over. There was no question more
frequently asked than why did the bombs fall? Who dropped them? Why wasn’t
there a warning? Many people suspected the Russians, other people said that the
idea was just a conspiracy and that the USA was the real perpetrator. Maybe it
was Iran, or Korea, people would counter argue. Omega Tower had never offered
any answers. But Omega Tower was all anybody had. Such questions remained unanswered
and would do for the rest of people's lives. People have no other choice but to
accept it. They are stuck somewhere between life and death, a death that was
offered, but never came.
    Zack arrived at the bar and gestured
to the barman. Ronson's face was burnt and puckered and had the appearance of a
weathered lunar landscape, cratered and wounded, but stable. One eye had been
lost, a victim of the war. Zack always thought how different he would have
looked if they still lived in the old world. How such a burn might have been
treated by doctors in that time, and people would have commented on what a good
job they had done. He would have received a skin graft, Zack thought, or even a
face transplant, and maybe his eye would have been saved. In places the wound
was still red, like it might still hurt to touch. Sometimes he saw Ronson
sitting with his one good eye closed as if he was trying to block out the pain.
Physical or mental, he didn’t know.
    The walls of the bar were constructed
out of old doors from containers that would have at some point sailed the
oceans on cargo ships. There was a logo on one of the panels that read NAVIMEG
and so that’s what people called the bar.
    “Hey, Shiner,” Ronson said. It’s what
he called everybody on account of their presence in NAVIMEG. Alcohol was
homemade now, and it was strong. Moonshine, Ronson called it. “Take a seat.” Zack
sat down onto the stool, an upturned oil barrel, and shuffled about until he
was as comfortable as he would get. “Where you been?”
    “Hey, Ronny. I’ve been busy. It's
been harder to get here. I've been doing extra shifts on account of somebody
going on the sick.”
    “Extra shifts up on B3, no doubt,”
Ronson said with a smirk on the half of his face that moved. Zack wondered if
he too was getting a cut. He hoped not. Everybody was obsessed with B3 tonight.
    “You know me, Ronson, it’s not.....”
    “Yeah I know,” he interrupted. “I'm
just pulling your chain. It's not your style, right? You’re a good kid, Shiner.”
Zack was somewhere between thirty two and thirty five years old, he thought, but
to Ronson he was still a kid. It was hard to tell Ronson’s age due to the
scarring, but he had to be in his late sixties. He wasn’t at work on the day
when fire rained from the sky. He was outside in it, and anybody who doubted it
just needed to take a look at his face to remember. “Not an angel, though,” he
said as he placed a small beaker of Moonshine next to him. “At least I hope you
haven't become one. I take it you got it?”
    “I got it,” replied Zack. “Of course
I got it.” Zack pulled a small plastic card from the back pocket of his
overalls and slid it across the dimpled metallic surface of the bar. Ronson
watched as Zack inched the card closer and closer, appearing almost frightened
to touch it in case he destroyed its precious value.
    “And you are sure