(Chapter 21) Roger & Elliott

The following interview was transcribed verbatim from a recorded session and written alongside several personal observations.

I've finally managed to finagle an interview with the leaders of this town, though I do appreciate their time is very precious so this interview may be shorter than the others. Once again they are mid-sixties, though the extra pressure seems to have aged the male, Roger, more so than his wife Elliott. I have been very much looking forward to speaking to the two people responsible for this surprisingly well-developed town.

AA - Good afternoon you two, I appreciate you taking the time to speak with me.

RT - No worries man, glad to take a bit of a break.

ET - Yeah, the whole town's talking about you. Makes sense that we'd come by!

RT - Just nice to get away from all the admin, to be honest. I hear you're something of an archivist yourself.

AA - 'Archivist', I like that one. But first, for the record, could you both please introduce yourselves.

(RT clears his throat before talking.)

RT - Roger Thompson, male, aged sixty-six.

ET - Elliott Thompson, female, aged sixty-nine.

AA - Excellent, please do relax. This is just a casual interview for the historical records.

ET - You think people will read this one day?

AA - Well, that's the hope, my dear. With what you're doing here I can happily say the human race has a chance to rebuild.

RT - Well, we just do what we can.

AA - As good a place to start as any. Can you tell me...well, how this whole place came to be?

RT - That's a bit of a long story.

ET - Things just kind of began to snowball passed a certain point.

RT - It started in the same place everyone's story around here began, waking up and walking out of a bunker network.

ET - There were...must have been around one hundred of us in total at the start.

AA - That many in one bunker? That's unusual.

RT - Why is that?

AA - Well...just in terms of other people waking up. They always said they were alone or with maybe five or so other survivors.

RT - Fair enough, I guess more people found our little bunker. But yeah, we all left together.

ET - We grabbed as much stuff as we could before leaving. There were a few vehicles we managed to salvage and got ourselves a little convoy going. Roger was loving it.

RT - Aside from the end of the world thing, who doesn't love a convoy! We had walkie-talkies and everything!

ET - He insisted on every vehicle having a codename…

(ET rolls her eyes, but it's a very fond gesture with the smile.)

RT - Oh come on, it's the dream! That was so fun...again, ignoring the collapse of civilisation vibe.

ET - And the zombies.

RT - And mutants.

ET - And raiders.

RT - Everything you need for a perfect survival video game.

AA - Except...it's reality?

RT - Yeah well...we all have our coping mechanisms.

AA - That's fair. Anyway, the convoy?

ET - We stopped every now and again for more supplies, raiding whatever we came across.

RT - Then we found the first group of survivors a few weeks after driving south.

AA - Were you heading anywhere in particular?

RT - To be honest...we just chose a direction and started driving.

ET - We didn't have any goals then. Drive south, see what we could find or remember. Eventually, a couple of trucks peeled off from our convoy.

AA - The group separated?

RT - Unfortunately there were some...leadership disagreements.

AA - Who was in charge at the time?

ET - It was...kind of us? I guess?

RT - People looked to us to make decisions, I guess it was our call to head out and drive south so...well, you know what people are like. Always eager to let someone else make the decision.

ET - Until they disagree that is. It happened after we encountered the first group of survivors that wasn't us. There was something of an...argument as to what to do with them.

AA - 'Do'?

RT - Well, Elliott and I said we should just let them join our convoy. We're all humans, after all, share our resources and stick together.

ET - But two other...factions had formed. One had more of a hierarchical structure in mind, with them at the top of course.

RT - The others wanted the new people to 'prove themselves' in some fashion. After we put our foot down, in our first decision as the 'leaders', the convoy split into three.

AA - Where did the others end up?

ET - Well, we folded the new group into our convoy and kept moving south.

RT - After we divided up the resources, the other trucks went west and east respectively.

ET - We're not sure what happened to them.

RT - Yeah, at the moment we don't have the resources to scout for them properly.

ET - It's a shame, it would be good to make contact with other settlements. Start trading, working together and so on.

RT - We're basing that on what we've been able to accomplish as a group so far. ]

AA - So you're confident in your ability to lead?

RT - It's more like we have confidence in everyone to work together. We make a decision when it's needed.

ET -That's why we're in the position we are I guess. People started coming to us to mediate decisions or solve disputes. After that, it made sense that we end up in the position we are.

RT - I'm happy to accept the responsibility, although now it's more like we're the head administrators for the town.

AA - In what way?

ET - Well, we have big plans for this little town.

RT - It's not so little any more and that's half the problem. The town is still growing, we keep finding new people every day.

ET - And then there are the groups of children that come to us.

RT - Not only can they not read or write, but they don't have names. Now we've set up the orphanage we need to find someone to run it, monitor their progress, find a way to name the etcetera.

ET - It's lucky the boys managed to fix the computer system when they could.

RT - Oh man, that saved a lot of time. I haven't had to write by hand so much since my uni days!

ET - We're getting the whole town organised now, we've even had to start naming the streets.

RT - Luckily, most of the infrastructure is still there. We managed to tap into the sewer and water networks, now that we have the pumps working again. That cut out a lot of our problems.

ET - It's hard to imagine everything that goes into running a town. At our next meeting, we have a few announcements to make.

RT - Some big changes are coming, but we're pretty confident the town will back us on them all.

AA - Is it confidential or can I get a peek?

ET - As long as you promise not to leak it!

RT - The major thing is the formation of a town council.

AA - Now that is quite a substantial move forward.

ET - It represents a lot, but mainly taking some of the responsibility from our shoulders.

RT - We'll be implementing it shortly, keeping a close eye on how it develops. We're planning on dividing all of our responsibilities into different sectors, then appointing someone to oversee the development.

ET - With that comes allocation of resources, from manpower to raw materials.

RT - It's taken months of planning, and it had to change every damn week to account for another group of survivors. Not that we weren't happy to see them mind you.

AA - Sounds like it's an exciting time to be around.

RT - Man, I really hope so. It's taken a long time, and Elliott only just managed to convince me to reveal it to the rest of the town.

ET - I don't see the problem, we got this far by working together. People keep offering to help in different ways, we might as well use that while we can.

RT - Basically the town is getting too big for us to manage acceptably. We want to make sure it starts on the best footing it can.

AA - I've only just realised, I never asked what this place was called.

(ET makes a cutting gesture at her throat, I think she wanted me to stop talking.)

RT - Ah, well, that's a point of some...contention.

AA - I do apologise.

(RT he sighs heavily, I think this is a tough subject.)

RT - It's just...so hard to find the right name for this place without it sounding too...typical.

ET - He's just played too many video games.

RT - Never mind the books and films.

AA - Well, this place is home. I'm sure something will come to you eventually.

RT - Well...there's plenty going on to keep us busy for now.

ET - We'll have to make this decision eventually sweetheart.

RT - We'll leave it to the council eventually, that's one of the reasons I want them in the first place.

AA - That seems like a fair trade. So tell me a little about yourselves then, what do you remember about your life before waking up in the bunker?

RT - We've tried, unfortunately, gives me a banging headache.

ET - Same, I know we were together. Working regular jobs and all that.

RT - I remember little details very vividly, our house, my job, the weekend D&D sessions I had with friends. The rest of it is just...faded.

ET - Probably for the best, to be honest, I do remember some of the stuff that was happening before we went underground. It scared me.

RT - Good point, there's a lot of stuff I'm happy to forget...I think.

AA - That's quite an anathema.

RT - That's what she said…

ET - …

AA - …

RT - I'm sorry, I'm tired.

ET - By that logic, you've been tired your whole life.

RT - You know you love my dad jokes.

(ET rubs her belly slightly.)

ET - Well, I suppose you're at least allowed now.

(RT smiles broadly.)

AA - Oh, the two of you are...expecting?

(They both put fingers to lips in a shushing gesture.)

RT - That's something for a later date.

ET - A much later date.

AA - Fair enough, well a secret congratulations.

RT - Thanks, now if we can just make sure the town council doesn't abuse their power.

ET - It'll take time for people to get used to it, but there's no one in this town we don't trust.

RT - Terrible what happened to that army fellow.

ET - Yeah, nightmare.

(ET was somewhat more sarcastic.)

AA - Power is a responsibility as well as a privilege, use it for good.

RT - That's a good one, I might steal that off you.

AA - You're very welcome to it. Well, I think I've kept the two of you for long enough, thank you so much for making time for me today.

RT - And thank you for the distraction, now it's back to the grind.

ET - Nice to meet you!

AA - You two as well.

END

Needless to say, this town is in very safe hands.