12: RADIO_ARIA

The time in the bunker was perhaps some of the most unpleasant and miserable of the entire journey. There was no goal beyond trying to become less ill, but even that was rather difficult. The two of them only grew more sick as they waited. Furthermore, they only continued to become more sick of each other, trapped with no room to be apart.

The food in the bunker was ill tasting mash that made Adelaide consider whether starvation might have been a better option. The water had an off taste. It hadn't been sealed correctly and had been left sitting and absorbing the gentle taste of mildew.

Rainmaker wound up sleeping for the most part. He couldn't eat and keep the food down, so he tried to conserve his energy until he had the ability to manage keeping something down. He slept curled in a corner. He wanted nothing to do with the couch and just slept curled on himself in a corner.

It seemed as though time had become sluggish on purpose within that bunker. It was almost vicious how each passing moment stretched into an eternity of discomfort. Adelaide herself was caught in a cycle of nausea, her stomach churning with every unappetizing mouthful of mash. She however did not have the luxury of sleeping at all times like Rainmaker. She was waiting for a call.

Any chance at all that Forrest might answer her. Might say something to her. Might make her happy to have kept a hold on the radio. But nothing happened. The relay never came to life. Part of her was left suspicious of Rainmaker. Part of her wanted to believe he'd broken it completely just to spite her. But the relay was still buzzing. If she put it on certain frequencies, it played messages.

The fact Rainmaker hadn't broken it really only made Adelaide angrier. Angrier that those maggots which were causing her skin to swell up had filled her mind and forced her to push him away. Forrest would never have gone if those maggots hadn't bred out of control and destroyed everything.

At best, Adelaide and Rainmaker ignored each other for most of it, both lost in their own minds.

Adelaide had fancied up a new theory about how the world functioned. The world was a pyramid, and Jisako, its pharoah. Those at the top were few, of course, but their weight pushed down on everything below. She had seen an image of a bent pyramid. Strange and misshapen from some sort of collapse.

There must have been some undisputable hierarchy to the world, and Jisako must have been at the very top, exercising a gentle rule. None of the decadence of Ptolemy and Anthony. A rule so gentle, its influence on the world went unnoticed.

She forgot the rest of the nonsense she'd cooked up a few days after coming up with it, of course, but for a few moments, she was utterly convinced of its truthfulness.

They crawled out of the bunker after a few days, when Adelaide could feel her fingers and when Rainmaker wasn't consistently having to expel the contents of his stomach through his mouth. They still looked like garbage, and they still felt it too, but it also was nicer than being completely sick from poisoning.

Though Adelaide was fairly certain they wouldn't live very long, still. They had eaten from the tree. There would be no surviving that. Well– she had eaten from the tree. She didn't know whether Rainmaker had or not. She hadn't seen and he hadn't said, but it was hard to believe he wouldn't at least try to reach for the fruit that she hadn't gotten to. If he had, she could imagine him nervously keeping it secret to avoid a scolding. She didn't really care if he had, though. He had no interest in survival, and neither did she. It was a perfect match.

Adelaide practically dragged the briefcase along now, though. No matter how hard she tried, its weight was becoming far too much for her. It felt a bit like losing a part of her to think about abandoning it-- holding onto it would be holding onto hope. Giving up, dropping it, and leaving felt a bit too cold and extreme of an action to take.

So she continued to yank it along.

Rainmaker didn't have much to carry. The two of them had opted against taking the food cans with them. The cans would be hard to carry, and would only make rattling noise if they dragged them along. The perfect thing to ruin any chance of sneaking up on a demon. They had decided to bring the gun along, though. For whatever help it might've been. Which likely wouldn't have been much, considering their shared inability to really use a gun, but that was neither here nor there. At least having the gun might have spooked a conduit or two into backing down faster.

The pair of them wandered to another tree. It was charred on the outside, and part of it was leaning to the side. But somehow, despite all the chaos, the damn thing was somehow still standing. Jisako's ghost lingered near the tree, sitting on one of the branches. A scarab seemed to sit on her forehead, like some sort of crown. The ghost wasn't looking at Adelaide, no matter how hard she tried to look at it. In fact, it seemed to be pointedly ignoring her.

They didn't get to contemplate the awe of the tree being alive, or Jisako's glory for too long, as two figures emerged from behind the tree. A man and a woman. "What're youses doing here?" one of them asked. The man.

He was hunched over, and on account of already being rather short, he looked rather compact with his poor posture. Like he was created as a more easily transported version of the average human being. Beside the man, was a rather stout woman. She had a serious face, and smelled of rotting onions. From what Adelaide could see of it, the woman's skin was ashen and grey. The both of them were covered in soot, and their skin bore the horrific burns of radiation. Adelaide had no idea how the two of them could have managed to survive the blast that must've been right over their damn heads with such relatively minor injuries.

The both of them seemed rather old, far older than Adelaide herself. Perhaps they were bordering closer to the age Sepheline might have been at the present day. "We've been walking through. We've got business through here. At Ground Zero," she said.

"You can't take our tree," the man said, rather sharply. "You're not allowed. Council forbade it."

Rainmaker and Adelaide looked at each other, before shrugging. "Right. It's nothing to worry about then," Adelaide answered for the both of them. "Neither I nor my... son will be causing you any trouble. We've got no interest in this... fine arbour you've clearly made grow into a fine beauty of the landscape." How the hell does a singular tree survive a nuclear bomb? Is its wood not flammable?

She turned to look at him. Rainmaker visibly cringed at the fact he being called her 'son' was becoming a lie they would use by default. The old woman snarled at the both of them. "Better not. We see you touchin' this here byoot, and we'll turn your heads inside out."

Adelaide mentally debated whether that threat would count as one that was far too whimsical to make sense or not, before once again shrugging it off. "No worries. We just have to pass through," she said. "We've never even breathed air from a tree."

Rainmaker glared at her for her obvious sarcasm.

The old man spat at their feet. "Never breathed the air from a tree?"

"Never. Not ever once in my life."

"Adelaide!" Rainmaker hissed. "Will you stop antagonizing them?"

"I am not antagonizing anyone– I'm simply saying the truth." Though she wasn't entirely. The real truth was that Adelaide was bored, and irritated, and everything felt wrong, and these old people couldn't put up much of a fight anyway, she bet, so it was an easy way to take out her frustrations. Same as how she'd implied Rainmaker must've been beat as a child or been generally unkind with him back down in the bunker. She wanted to take her frustration out on something. Needed to. "We've got no business with the tree, so it's really not like we'd be any trouble for them."

"You think we're stupid, Girlie?"

"A little bit," Adelaided answered impulsively. Rainmaker looked like he was going to punch her. Adelaide refused to step off. It simply made sense to her: to keep pushing until something broke, because there was no remedying things with the old couple anyway. "What are you guarding the tree from? This entire city's been nuked." Adelaide's briefcase once again nearly slipped out from her fingers– she struggled to grip it. The knots of fabric that Rainmaker had tied around it were growing looser with every passing moment, and they were going to slip eventually. Though her cross' knots sat stubborn as ever on her other hand.

"Well the tree survived."

"Yes, so what the hell are you trying to protect it from?"

Adelaide, and the old couple both became more heated and irritable. In another time, they could've been just another woman and another pair of seniors who went about their business. But there had been so much brewing– and Adelaide was left almost entirely at the whims of her own impulses.

Rainmaker attempted to step between the arguing group. "Sorry– my mother, she's... Well, you see, it's a sickness in her nature to seek battle at every turn. We're exorcists, we're just followers of the good lord above trying to make our way through– she's just become a bit bitter with her troubles."

The old man looked at Rainmaker, before spitting on the young man's shoes. Adelaide was rather irritated with him too. She debated for a moment whether to spit at the old man's shoes, or Rainmaker's. Both seemed rather tempting.

The old man stuffed his hands into his pockets, and bent his knees downward. "You come here looking for a fight, lil missy?" he asked, looking at Adelaide. The woman walked to his side.

"Might I have? I said I wouldn't touch your tree. You were being puffy about it. I had my own thought on your behaviour."

"Adelaide! Shut up!" Rainmaker snapped. "We need to be going anyway!" He waved his hands about him, as though he were some bird attempting to make itself bigger in the face of an opponent. Adelaide came rather close to stomping on his foot and yelling at him to go away, but she finally chose against it.

The old man stood up from his squat and unhunched himself. He was still rather short, standing only about up to Adelaide's shoulders. Rainmaker stood between them, though Adelaide and the old man both shoved at him, trying to make the young man move. Rainmaker remained rooted. Ironically, like the tree which had started this whole mess. The old woman was content to just stand by, watching with an unreadable expression on her face.

Adelaide had the slightest hint of self awareness as Rainmaker stepped between them again, though it didn't last very long. She had been raised– almost entirely by accident– to forgo reason if it was for the sake of feeding her anger. She attempted to shove him again, but Rainmaker shoved her back. Really, Adelaide didn't understand what he feared in the event of a brawl. Considering the whole lot of them were all infirm to an extent, it didn't mean much if they did start throwing punches at one another.

Besides, those two are old enough to be buried, Adelaide thought to herself, as she finally stopped shoving Rainmaker around. She couldn't help a growl, though.

The old woman finally spoke up. "Aiya, no need for fights. I see, I see. These two must be a horrible sort of tired. They should come with us." Her voice was light, and airy– aged with time, but still carrying a gentleness in it.

The old man, Aiya, frowned, though he did as his wife said and stepped off. Adelaide felt a sudden sharp, agonizing pain in her chest. She gasped, grabbing at her chest, wondering if the old man had done something, but nothing had happened. She was physically fine. She pawed at where it hurt most. Or tried to, at least. But nothing was actually injured.

The old man had been just as angry as she had been. Just as eager to start a fight. But with a few small words from his wife, he was docile again. The realization had a bitter taste to it. A bile must have bubbled up, filled with maggots, inside her esophagus.

She glanced to try and see Rainmaker's face. He was turned away from her, and instead facing the old man, though she could imagine only derision must've been on his mind. Because that was what she kept pushing everyone toward. It was why Forrest would never speak to her again. It was why Jisako was dead, and only able to haunt the moments. She glanced at the crown of the tree again, but its kohinoor was long gone.

She hadn't even noticed that in the middle of her fight.

Her heart sank violently– though she attempted to hide it as best she could with a scowl and a huff. "Where do you want us to go with you two, exactly?" she demanded, huffing and puffing about the whole thing with rather clear unwillingness to speak.

The old woman simply smiled. "We have a nice bunker. There's no harm in coming down to relax for a bit, is there?" she asked, although it didn't feel much like a question. She stared at the both of them, her eyes boring into them. Adelaide felt a chill. This woman wasn't like Jisako. Her gaze was piercing and cold, and her lips barely fended off a smile.

Rainmaker looked at Adelaide finally– and he shot her a glare. It was cold. Devoid of familiarity, because truthfully, they were still little more than strangers to one another, but more stinging to her, was that they were devoid of any respect or interest. Rainmaker was not always respectful, but he was at least always listening, despite his obvious derision at some of the things she said. And it reminded her once again of all the things she had done to push off the people she had loved– how she had loved and lost repeatedly by her own shortcomings, really.

The briefcase dropped from her hand, and Adelaide did not move to pick it back up.

#

The bunker of the old couple was not very large, nor very nice, and it wasn't terribly different from the one they'd been in before. The ceiling was a good bit lower. A fact which presented no issue for the small, hunched over seniors, though was giving Adelaide a fair share of back problems. The bunker didn't have wallpaper, instead being nothing more than a grey box. There was nowhere to sleep, sit, or stand if you were any taller than Aiya or his wife, who had revealed herself to be named Nuna on the way over.

The spacing of the bunker itself wasn't too terrible for two small, hunched over people. Had they wanted to, Nuna and Aiya could have lived the rest of their lives together in the little bunker. Prepared correctly, it could have had enough room for food and water and a little entertainment in the form of some books or yarn.

The trouble was that they had gotten the bunker under the assumption they'd never actually need it for anything. They had foolishly trusted that the world was wiser than to destroy itself, and that it was all no more than some stupid posturing from nations who would never actually pull the trigger.

Those two fools, as a result, had simply never bothered to stock their bunker particularly thoroughly, or add any comforts for themselves– and in fact, what was inside, were just things they had nowhere else to store in their actual house. A house which was nothing more than a distant memory now, on account of having been eviscerated by those bombs they thought were nothing more than empty threats.

They'd survived by some sheer luck, really. They had been down in the right place at just the right time. There were a handful of canned goods in the bunker– though the majority of what was kept down there was just the couple's junk. There were the remnants of an old canoe, laid down across the ground. A shovel with a bullet hole through it. Mechanical junk like car parts. Rubber band after rubber band. A toboggan, which Nuna had said was for their granddaughter, who she assured lived in a different city, and who was not one of the small corpses among the wreckage of their house.

Though Nuna then did not bother to explain who those bodies actually belonged to.

Aiya was more than eager to divulge his theories and thoughts on the matter, however. "Sabimi maybe? Or Garvey. I'd bet it was Garvey. They always let that kid outside at all the worst times, and there was no sleep in the neighbourhood because of him. Or possibly Sashemimi! Or Horvi! Or even Zunairah's little pig children! Those children always ruined things. Either way, not our snorts. And if the shit's aren't ours, then it's not our problem."

"Right…" Rainmaker nodded with a visible discomfort.

"Did anyone else survive in this neighbourhood?" Adelaide wondered. She hadn't spoken very much since the encounter at the tree. She'd frightened herself. And a piece of her had died– and both things seemed like good enough excuses to never speak again. Good enough circumstances to hide and retreat into fear forever over.

The rest of the group had been fine in terms of speaking without her butting in anyway. Rainmaker was good at seeming amiable– even if he could be awkward. The old couple offered him a good deal more decency than they offered her. He, after all, had not been the one to try picking a needless fight.

Aiya plopped himself down to sit on the remnants of the canoe. "Don't know. Don't care. Just damn glad our tree survived."

"Is the tree special?" Rainmaker asked.

Adelaide watched the group of them. She stood off to the side. It felt strange to not have the weight of the briefcase on her arm, pulling her to one side. She once again could not feel her fingers. She attempted to trace them along the back wall of the bunker, but it did her little good. She could scarcely grasp any sense of texture. Not because the wall was well smoothed, no. But because her fingers were essentially useless for feeling. They also struggled with moving. Grasping. Adelaide's hands may as well have been glued on. She wasn't getting much use out of them anymore.

Her fingers barely flexed. There was no point in even trying to hold onto anything now. It was as though her once functional hands had been replaced with rubber toys which she had to pretend were the real thing.

The bunker walls were hard, and they were cold. The inside of the bunker was also cold. And in fact, the place felt colder than the outside, though neither Adelaide nor Rainmaker voiced that. They didn't want to get booted out. There couldn't have been any sort of AC running inside the place, so they had no idea how it was so cold. The only thing which warmed them was the faint heat from their crosses, which was not a soothing heat of any kind.

"It's the most special thing here," replied Aiya. "In fact, a million human lives couldn't compare to the importance of it."

"…Why?" Rainmaker lowered himself, sitting on his knees in front of the old couple. Adelaide couldn't decide if he was being respectful toward them or just lacking in self respect. She concluded it was most likely both.

"Dunno. Dunno. But we'll find out," he said. "If we wait for long enough, the answers will come. Or something. Don' matter that much to me."

Rainmaker nodded. Adelaide raised a brow, unable to hide her skepticism toward the pair of them. She found the entire premise of waiting for something without knowing what you were sitting for stupid. But she opted against speaking. Staying quiet guaranteed less trouble.

"Answers to what, may I ask?"

"Everything."

"Everything?" Rainmaker feigned curiosity and leaned forward, listening perked up, as though he were prepared to hear some grand secret of the universe through the mouth of this deranged old man.

"Yes, everything! Are you going deaf, boy?"

"He's in awe, Aiya," Nuna chastised. "Allow him to bask in the glory of learning something new and interesting, my darling." Her voice was musical in its tone. She was utterly

Though Adelaide glanced at him once, and she could easily tell it wasn't awe so much as it was disbelief. The young man clearly had no idea what these old loons were muttering about. Though they were clearly quite big fans of muttering about the tree being magical, he still found it odd to look two people in the eyes and be told that they were sitting by a tree because if they waited it would give them answers to everything, by a man who seemed utterly disinterested in that very premise.

Adelaide was a bit concerned by it. Sometimes demons hid themselves in things. The tree didn't exactly feel like there was a demon or any other presence in it. Which was odd. Because Adelaide felt the presences of demons rather easily. Her cross burned her fingers when she held it. And if it didn't burn, it glowed.

But her cross had gone cold a while ago, after she'd killed the last demon she'd seen– and it hadn't warmed again. So she was running under the assumption it must've been that the tree was empty of demons. She didn't like the alternative– because everyone needed the tools of their trade, and if her cross wasn't working, she'd be a miner without a canary. She needed some warning signs. Not every demon was as obvious as Caidus or as docile as Krito.

A majority of them snuck up on you if you weren't careful.

"The tree gives answers?" Rainmaker asked, sitting politely and looking as awed as he could manage. He wasn't a very good actor, so he didn't look particularly awed to Adelaide. Mainly, she thought he looked vaguely disoriented at best.

"The tree doesn't give answers."

"What will give the answers, then?"

"Someone's going to come. Give us all the answers we need."

"Who's going to come?"

"Do you need a fuckin' snapping, boy?"

"Be kind, my dear Aiya."

"Patient. Yes. We know patience." Aiya shoved his hands deep in his pocket once again.

Adelaide looked at Nuna. The old woman seemed almost ethereal in her presence. She barely spoke and when she did, her word felt like it was otherworldly in its ability to command. Especially when she spoke to Aiya. There was something hypnotic about it. But Adelaide couldn't help but feel a strange sense of discontent in her chest as she stared out at the woman and her husband. Something just didn't feel right. Though, Adelaide realized it didn't matter how much something didn't feel right to her by this point, seeing as she'd fucked up big time, and no one was particularly keen on listening to her now.

Her chest tightened.

"There's only one thing in this life, and that's questions, boy. There are no answers, there are no real joys, there are only questions," the old man rambled, bringing Adelaide's attention back to the conversation.

"You don't believe in joy?"

"I've been married sixty years, there's no such thing as joy no longer, boy."

Adelaide looked at Nuna, but the old woman didn't react, only chuckling dryly. Adelaide stared the crone down, her mind swirling with envy. It would've been nice if Jisako was capable of reacting that way. Adelaide cursed herself for even daring to think Jisako held any blame. It was all entirely Adelaide's fault. Entirely her fault.

Aiya paced back and forth through the tiny strip of available space amongst the junk. "What's your name, boy?"

"...Erh– Well, Rain. Rainnnnn… Raino. It's Pizzicato. My mother and I are both… Pizzoian. Small country– right off the coast of Zambia."

Adelaide barely hid her snort. She couldn't figure out what his aversion to giving an actual name was, but she sure found his suffering rather amusing.

"Raino. Raino. Reminds me of a neighbour I had. Dirty pig– always trying to touch the tree. Always. Sold drugs or something too. Sold him out to the government but he came back an officer and he tried kick my ass."

"Riveting," the newly christened Raino replied. "And what are these questions that build up all of life?" he asked.

"I was about to get to that," Aiya snapped. He wasn't. "But first, I should know whether it's knowledge you should possess. I mean, it's not something we should just hand out willy-nilly just because you survived a couple explosions."

Adelaide looked at Raino. She gestured him over. "Son. Son, come here," she called.

Rainmaker ignored her. "It will… be up to your will," he answered, though it was very obvious to just about everyone in that room that he was curious. Adelaide couldn't even really fathom why he was so invested in what she saw as nothing more than a pair of crazy old kooks who had fallen deeply in love with a tree. The only thing of value about the tree was the materials it could create.

"You ought to listen to your mama. My mama got her brains blown out in the war."

"What war?"

"The war."

There had been plenty of war, but Adelaide couldn't think of which one was so pronounced it would be considered the war. Sepheline had of course once said there had been a war to end all wars, but that war had acquired itself a sequel, so it certainly could not have ended all war.

Rainmaker awkwardly wandered over to Adelaide, and leaned down. She flinched. His expression was cold. He still wasn't happy about the fact she'd nearly caused a rather bad fight, and he certainly wasn't hiding his displeasure about it. Really, he seemed like a girlfriend who would cross her arms, pout, and insist she was 'fine' regardless of how obviously she was not. He crossed his arms and leaned his head close, waiting for her to say something, which really only made the thought more convincing.

Adelaide sighed, before whispering in his ear. She didn't whisper a single apology– there was still a part of her that wanted to be vindicated instead– but she did provide him something that was worthwhile enough to listen to that he gave her a small nod, despite the lingering tensions.

Raino wandered back over to the man. "Here's a thought. If all life is made of questions, which we don't have the answers to– then having a question and not knowing the answer isn't too different to having no idea what the question is at all, is it?"

Aiya looked at him, raising a brow. Nuna seemed delighted. "The key to knowledge is nonsense," she declared.

Rainmaker clearly had no idea what the fuck just happened or how the hell that had worked. At all. The young man looked utterly dumbfounded, before he just stammered something about "learning great wisdom through observing the great tarsier-lemming birds of his homeland". Whatever bullshit he could cook up while still reeling from whatever Adelaide had made him say. And somehow accomplish through.

"Pizzans are a special bunch, aren't we?"

"I thought you were Pizzoians?" Aiya narrowed his eyes.

Rainmaker jumped in, hurrying to remedy the situation as fast as possible. "Oh we speak many languages. In our own, we would consider ourselves Pizz."

Oh you're certainly piss poor at this. Adelaide barely hid the way she laughed with a fake cough. It was maddening to watch Rainmaker stumble all over himself, failing at lying, and even more maddening to see how the old man was going along with it.

Rainmaker once again clearly wanted to gut her, but by this point, it seemed everyone on either side of this nonsense conversation had decided that they were clearly speaking to a pair of loons. Aiya lowered his head. "I don't believe they are worthy. I think you both need to pizz off."

"I think they will do. There's only so much flowing blood here." Nuna smiled, before her grey skin began to melt.