Lurranus 2 (Part 4/4)

(Continued from Part 3)

Liam looked up, suddenly interested. "What is it?"
John gestured with his eyes down at the folded clothes in his arms. Liam hadn't even noticed that John was carrying something. He was holding a neatly folded military uniform, with a white note on top.
"It's Chris' old uniform." Liam looked at him, confused. "Read the note, then you'll get it."
Intrigued, Liam took the clothes, put them on his lap, and picked up the note.

Liam,

If you reading this, than it means I am now dead. I hope you doing alright, and that this note makes its way to you. You're my friend, and have been for years, and a loyal friend at that. So for that, I'd like to say thank you. And, I'd like to ask you for one last favour, if that's alright.
I'd like you to give this uniform to my family. I don't know if I'll get a chance to say this before I pass, but if I don't, then I'll say it now. Hopefully, if you get this note, it'll come with a uniform.
And, if you could, I'd like you to give this to my family. Last time I saw them, we left things on a bad note. They said they didn't want anything to do with me, which is fair enough. But deep down, we still love each other.
So please give this to them, if you can. So that they can remember me. If you turn over this piece of paper, their address will be there. I don't know where you'll be when you get this but I hope it's not too far for you too travel to find them.
Well, that's all, really.
And take care of yourself pal. I hope that if you're feeling down and without a purpose, that this task will give you just that. Something to do, if you can't find anything else. It's your choice as to whether or not you do this. I hope you do, but I can't make you, and if you don't want to, that's fine. But I hope you do.
Anyway, thanks for always being by my side over all these years. You're my best mate and, if I never get to say it to you in person, then I'll say it here just in case: Thanks. For everything.
And all the best out there.
Enjoy your life. You earned it pal.

Cheers,
Chris

Liam read over the letter in silence while John watched.
"What does it say?" John asked him, when Liam finally looked away from the note, clearly emotional. "I mean, unless it's personal, you don't have to tell me."
"Just an old friend asking a favour." Came the reply.
"You lose someone?"
"Yeah. We all did."
Silence. John looked knowingly at Liam.
"I'm sorry."
Liam looked him in the eye. "Thank you."
There was silence again.
Looking around, John said. "You were certainly right about one thing: this city is a pretty grim place."
"The world is certainly past its best days." Liam say. John gave out a low laugh.
"Well, you're not wrong. This place is a shithole."
"Well, I guess we'll need to make a better one. Like... A virtual reality kind of one. On a computer, or something." Liam said this unmeaningly, in a joking tone.
"Something like that indeed." He thought for a moment, seeming to take the idea seriously. "Hell, I'm not half bad with computers, I could give it a shot. I mean, I'm not that great but... Well, no, I probably couldn't do it."
"But maybe someone could? There must be someone, somewhere."
"Probably. I don't know, but there's probably someone who's intelligent enough to do that. But, like I said, I don't know."
John reached down, grabbing a packed bag that had been hurriedly stuffed with clothes. He stood up.
"You off?"
"Yup." John replied. "A couple of guys from my squad are off down near my house. Figured I might as well hitch a ride."
"Well, see you around then, I guess."
John reached down to the ground, seeing a discarded pen and piece of paper, and wrote something on it.
"Here's my address, if you ever want to visit." John said, putting the bag on his shoulders. "In case you ever want somewhere to crash for the night, or something."
Liam laughed, then took the sheet of paper. "Cheers. I'll keep that offer in mind."
Liam put out his hand. John reached out, giving him a firm handshake.
"It was nice to meet you, Liam."
"Nice to meet you too. I hope you find your family."
"Thanks. You have a good one mate."
"You too."
John jogged over to a blue pickup truck, an old rusty thing that somehow still worked, and jumped into the back, setting down his bag and laying down.
He called out after him, "And good luck with your computer world." John raised his beer to Liam, in a sign of acknowledgement, and as a farewell.
The truck, an electronic one that ran on energy collected from a series of solar panels that had been laid out earlier, suddenly sprung into action, and began to drive away.
Liam watched as it drove of, along a road covered in all kinds of litter and rubbish, and as it slowly began to disappear, John's figure in the back of the vehicle fading into obscurity. Liam wondered whether he would act on those words he said to him. Probably not. But, you never knew...
He picked out the paper sheet and uniform John gave him and put it into his bag. Picking it up and his nearly empty energy rifle, the latter out of habit, he strode towards another a discarded bicycle, that lay alone on the street, but still appeared in working condition.
He didn't have much in his bag. A pistol, loaded with one full magazine of twenty bullets. A spare magazine with only seven shots. A bag full of thousands of spare, tiny Cubes. Some timed food. A single chocolate bar. A jacket. A reasonably clean shirt. And now Chris Steep's old uniform, along with the note and the address on it.
A uniform which he intended to give to the man's family, if they were still alive. He had their address. It was out of respect of Chris's final wish. That he give his family something to remember him by.
He knew what he was to do. What he would do after that... He didn't know. But, like the others, he intended to take things one step at a time.
He got onto the bike, put his foot on the pedal, and began he ride. A bit shaky at first, but getting more stable with each passing second. Riding away from the camp, from the others.
As he rode, the wind blowing in his face, he smiled.
He now had a purpose again. He had a meaning in life.
And suddenly he felt better.
He had a purpose. And he would make sure it was fulfilled.

2256

It was surprisingly beautiful.
Two hundred years ago, it would've been nothing more than a simple stream. Just some water, running along, going off to god knows where. These days, it was a literal saving grace. Liam leant down, putting his hands into the stream, and watched as the water chased the blood of his hands, leaving them wet and cold, but now clean of the blood of the dead cannibals. The dead cannibals whom he killed.
His hands now cleaned, Liam leant back down, and began drinking up mouthful after mouthful of the water to fill his thirst. As he leant back up, he felt the water rising back up his throat. He coughed it out and, leaning back down again, took more careful, measured sips.
He sat down on a nearby rock, and leant back onto the grass. The rock was wet, and so was the grass, but he couldn't care less after the cramp confined spaces of the truck, and the smells and sights that would always assault him.
He could still see the truck, in all its damaged glory, surrounded by the dead bodies of the cannibals, their brains and bodies in pieces after Liam's encounter with them, only a hundred metres away. Its body scarred by time, standing stationary against the stark, foggy background.
He took several more gulps, then stood up. There were several things he need to do while he was here. He would come back for more water in a minute, but there were somethings he needed to do first.
One man still was alive. He must have been hiding somewhere, for he was not around when Liam killed all of the group. He was heaving the bodies of his dead friends - or whatever they were to him - into the back of the truck, with the rest of the bodies. Liam smiled bitterly at the harsh irony. Now that they were dead, there was nothing left to do with them but shove them in the back of the truck to use as a food supply.
It showed just know much these men cared about each other.
The man still alive was the one with the energy rifle, the one who had come into the truck earlier, who wore the military uniform. A uniform that didn't belong to him.
The man didn't see Liam until it was to late. By the time he did, he was lying on the ground, struggling to breath after the ferocious kick that had just landed in his chest.
The man suffered several more blows, with Liam's fists littering the man's face with bruises. He kicked him back down as he struggled up, and he fell back into the dirt, his face covered with the ugly brown stuff. Liam picked up the energy rifle and shoved it in the man's face.
The man's eyes pleaded him Liam, just like the eyes of others had pleaded with this man moments before their deaths. He didn't deserve to live. The man was a monster.
But then again, weren't they all?
He didn't think about it any further. He looked away. He pulled the trigger. And after the echo of the guns sharp crack faded away, he stripped the man of the uniform. He tried not to look at the empty hole in the man's head that bled out onto the wet grass. The man was dead, gone. He was no more to Liam
As he did this, he looked at the name tag on the uniform.

U7U
SQUAD 213
UNIT 67
OFFICER 23
CHRIS STEEP

He caught sight of a collection of bags and strode over to then. Recognising one as his, he picked it up and looked inside it. An empty gun, barring one bullet he kept for himself. In case it ever came to the worst, as he had lost his pill. Several old plastic wrappers. A stained jacket. A stained shirt. And now, Chris Steep's old uniform.
He had never found Chris Steep's family, or their home. He had found the address of Chris's house, on the U7U's database, searching through old records and maps to find it, and when he got there, found nothing. Or rather, nothing left in the bombed out town that resembled a house.
And he had looked at he database again, looked at all his former homes and friends houses, and searched them all, only to find nothing. He had searched all of them, going on nothing more than an address on a worn, folded piece of paper. For eleven years, he searched. He met many people, some crazy, some sane, and saw the full extent of the War's devastation. Beyond the destruction. People holding their dead lovers hand, as if trying to will them back to life, refusing to move, content to starve to death were they sat. Small Oaktrus cells, keeping the organisations beliefs alive, bombing any settlements they came across. People who'd been driven crazy. Bunkers and houses, filled with blooded, near dead, naked humans for food. Young children ripped from their families and sold between war lords in exchange for supplies, to be used however that gang saw fit. Small peaceful settlements, that resembled what humanity used to be like. Intrexal trying to restore peace to the world, to help the many people in desperate need of it. Lawless land ruled by gangs. Countless dead corpses, that had been skinned, blown up, eaten, raped, shot, beat up, or had just died, from anything from starvation to disease to hypothermia. Hundreds of occupied body bags lined against the edge of the road. Bodies, not in bags, lined neatly against the road. And dead bodies, merely dumped all over the road. Bodies, bodies, bodies. Bodies everywhere.
And he watched it all through empty eyes. He knew the morally right thing to do would be to stop it, to intervene. But he knew he'd only end up dead, and nothing would change. There was no point killing himself for no reason. And beside, he had a job to do.
And once he came to the last location, he found nothing. Just an empty house.
And so ended his purpose. They was nowhere else to look. Nowhere else Chris Steep's family could be. He went back to just wondering. For over sixty years, just walking, watching the world go by, one meaningless day after another.
And so he sat, on the gentle, wet grass. For a minute or five minutes or for an hour, he didn't know. Didn't care. The water seeping into his unruly hair, time just flowing by, with the unchanging grey sky giving no indication how long he had been there.
Eventually he got up, slinging his bag over his shoulder. His friends uniform and empty packets occupying the space within.
He looked back, one last time, at the truck. The cannibals and the prisoners were all dead now. At peace. Dead bodies and their bloody wounds lying on the wet grass, being bathed in the water that fell from the sky. Their blood being slowly washed away. No more groans came from inside the vehicle. No groans of pain, of suffering, of willing life to come to an end. Just silence, barring the patter of the rain as it hit the trucks metal roof.
Then he looked the other way. The events in the truck were over. He was finished with that damn thing. He took a deep breath, looking forward into the hostile mist, unable to see what lay before him. It was almost like a metaphorical representation of his current state, he thought. He smiled, briefly, the upward curl in his lips only just visible, had anyone been watching to see this.
He didn't know where he was going to go now. He would probably just go back to wondering. Maybe he would try to help someone. Maybe he would leave for one of Earth's large space stations, which was where most of the remaining humans where. The rest, like Liam, had just been forgotten about, left behind.
Or maybe he would go and see John Closer. See the virtual reality world he had made, whatever it was called. He couldn't quite remember the name.
But it had turned out that John had stayed true to his word. That he remembered their conversation. He had made it. A virtual world. A better world.
Maybe he'd go to see it.
Or maybe he'd just go back to watching.
But he didn't know. For now, he'd take it one step at a time. Like Chris would've, he thought with a smile.
And then he walked off. Into the fog, away from the truck and the bodies. From the carnage and the waste. Walking along the dirt path that led of into the distance. Disappearing into the mist. His figure fading into the white of the fog. Slowly disappearing, until he could be seen no more.
Back to his wondering.

The end