text: It was the shadow growing beside him which stuck to him. Not the desecrated hillside, nor the growing flames beaide it. His world was crashing down on him before his eyes, yet his mind was fixated on the goddamn shadow, his own reflection. Smoke grew exponentially as ash began to fall from the sky. Like a dusting of snow, each speck falling differently. Hell, snowfall felt a little more practical to him at this point. It was mid January in the Southern Cascades yet the heat weighed him down like it was Hell in July. He reminisced about all of his youthful trips. Snow was something you could enjoy. But this wasn't snow. Shit. This wasn't even California. Not the one he remembered anyway. But this wasn't time to get all nostalgic. Myers had to dig up what he could of the drone he had just shot down and hightail it back up to Portland before the Staties could track him down. If his estimations were in the right ballpark, the scavenged parts could be resold into the green market for a solid thirty grand. The risk was high, but his pockets would be pretty damn ecstatic, which was all that mattered to him in the moment. He made sure to check that the system was disabled so he couldn’t be tracked, then managed to scavenge the last of the larger fragments into the back of the work truck. If he could get the hell out of dodge and into Portland by nightfall he'd be making a decent time. “Just twelve more Hours and I’m a new man”. He kept reminding himself. No more conning. No more scavenging. He’d buy his way up into Canada if he could. The merchants back in P-Town used to tell him about how that up North they had their shit together. Unlike the goons in office in the States, they could own up and face the realities of the ever so changing climate. That’s how they managed to hold on for this long. California and everything south was already down in the dumps, but so be it. There was no saving The West anymore, so why bother. He started the truck, and gassed it north through the smoky haze and trickling ash. Back in Portland, Walker and Adams spent the late a.m packing boxes of coffee smuggled up from Honduras. They could sell the stuff for forty bucks a pound, now that trade had been cut off the past two decades. Adding to the fact that the city went hard in its restrictions, people would go nuts for this stuff in the black market. But this was just sidework. With Myers hauling the disabled drone back from California, they had to anticipate how the deal would go down. If he arrived by the time he said he would, the trio would disassemble the processor from the main shell, store it, and greenlight their client, Edward Esteban, to retrieve his order. Esteban was no man to be fucked with. He knew the ins and outs of the green market, a term he himself coined referring to the redistribution of resources to both the drought and flood stricken areas. Sure he was all about reconstruction, but he ran the circuit with an iron fist. When he found insider information on the flight path of the Type 6 drone, he had his heart set on capturing the thing. The processor it was transporting had a plethora of vital information he could utilize to restore the impoverished regions of the Norcal as well as The Northwest. Water access, desalinization methods, information on obtaining smog converters -- he heard it was all in there. But the risk was too high for his crew to go after -- if they failed, his multi million dollar business would be fucked and the feds would fry his ass in a heartbeat. So what better way to retrieve the bot than getting a band of no namers to do it for him. After a full day of smuggling the drone up the cracked roads of the interstate, Myers was starting to close in on Portland. He had taken two calls in the preceding hours from Adams, who was preparing the warehouse. He kept circling the perimeter of the building, scouting for cops, feds, anything that seemed suspicious. Nothing. His paranoia was getting to his head again, his heart beating more and more as sweat began to seep from the cracks of his dry forehead. The poor guy was scared off his ass. He was always jumpy as hell, and he hated his job. Oh well. He knew that the position he was in sucked, but if the infamous Evacuation of 2057 taught him anything, it was that the world puts us into some pretty fucked up places. He just had to remind himself that adaption is what carries the human race onward. Zppp. Zppp. Zppp. Adams’ phone buzzes in his side pocket. His trembling, sweaty hand reaches in and clicks the green button. “Adams! It’s Myers. What’s the story on the warehouse? I’ll be in within the hour, and I want to get through this quick and clean”. “We should be set. I’ve kept in touch Esteban, who should be here by morning. The last thing I want to do is get on his bad side, so I’ve got all the shit necessary to get the processor ready. Do you even know why he needs this so bad? He’s been pretty damn insistent on knowing your whereabouts.” “No clue, my assumption is that it’s got some classified info that he can spread out, but was too much of a risk for him to go after on his own, so he contracts a nobody like me to do the dirty work”, Myers added. “Regardless, I could care less. I got out safely and after tomorrow we’ll have something to live for again. This payout is no joke”. “Alright buddy. Just don’t fuck this up, and we’ll come out ok. I’ll see you in an hour”. Adams hangs up, and heads back into the warehouse. Dusk was just starting fall, and the crisp, dense clouds -- a staple of the region -- began to collect overhead. Drip. Myers felt a speck of water seep through the roof of the vehicle on to the top of his head. He looked out onto the horizon as the last few minutes of daylight were saying their goodbyes. Clouds were starting to pick up more and more all around. Drops of rain began to fall, starting to leak through the top of the truck. Keep pushing through. Just another twenty miles, he kept in the back of his mind. He zoomed down the road, maxing out the hunk of crap just over 90 miles an hour. By the time he reached the city limits, the puffy clouds of rain had matured into thick, vicious cumulonimbus beasts. It was coming down. Myers hauled through the side streets in order to avoid potential vehicle inspection stops along the highway, as the city was starting to crack down on the black market. He pulls out his phone, and dials Adams. “I’m almost through. Open the fucking gate. Water is piling through the roof and drenching me. We have a serious storm coming in”. The sound of the lone engine coming down the street separated itself from the gushing sound of the torrential downpour. Adams and Walker could see the headlights making their way in. They slid open the gate, and the truck screeched into the warehouse. “Aren’t you a sight for sore eyes”, snickered Walker as Myers jumped out of the door. “500 miles and I’m finally in. Let’s get on this now. I don’t want the roadways flooding over. Esteban doesn’t have a goddamn boat you know”. The three began to slave away on preparing the fragments -- testing them, making sure everything was still in tact. But only Myers and Adams knew about processors. Walker was simply their henchman. At best he could negotiate prices with clients, but he didn’t have the same capacity of book smarts the way the other two did. By the time dawn broke, the work was finished, but the rain was only starting. Throughout the evening, the rapid buzz of rain striking the roof became white noise. Sudden storms like these became the norm, and they had just grown accustomed to it. Little did they know however that among other things, that the downpour would lead to downfall. Esteban had just called in, barking that he was on his way now before the floods would prevent him from doing so. The trio waited and waited until Esteban, accompanied by a gang of strongarms, entered the warehouse. Esteban’s crew, dressed in black raincoats with military grade handguns holstered at their sides, began to inspect the processor. The system was tested, and as Esteban carefully read over the information that showed up, a smirk began to light up his face. “Good shit fellas. Looks like I have all I need. Just know that If I find out any of this is shady -- even after selling -- its your heads that are done with first. Myers observed his demeanor. Never had he met someone so pleasant, yet so threatening and powerful just through the tone of his voice. The transaction was almost complete, and the three were in shock of how quick the process was. Wrong. They were bunkered away inside the warehouse the past twelve hours, not giving a shit as to what was exactly going on outside. Crash. The door gave in. The lights went black. The water bashed through. By God how fast it moved. Within one hot second, none of this deal meant shit anymore. It was every man for himself. Myers felt himself pushed back into a back wall, the brute force of the water pouncing on him like it was its job. If only he could see. He could hear muffled screams as he struggled to stay above the surface. The water levels began to grow rapidly, but even blind from the darkness, he grabbed onto a surface along the back wall, not entirely knowing what it was. But not much long after, the back wall gave in as well. He was pushed into the vacant flooded streets, but once again managed to grab onto the post of a streetlight. He observed his surroundings, gripping the post as best he could in order to stay stable. There. Half a block upstream, he spotted a tall concrete structure -- one he could try climbing onto to stay above the water. It was his only choice. He let go of the post, letting the water carry him directly into the structure. His back crashed into it as he bellowed out in pain. But that didn’t matter. He hoisted himself above the structure, viewing the morbid flow of water around him. He was utterly shocked. Even after a century of his country being wrecked by superstorms, wildfires, droughts, and rising sea levels, nature still had its way of saying Fuck you. His dreams of leaving for Canada were gone. Everything was washed away. the processor, his profit, his will to live even. He was back to square one. He waited out the flood for what seemed to be two days. Lucky for him, the sun cleared up finally and the structure remained intact. Then he heard shouting. He had to ask himself if he was hallucinating, but right before his eyes appeared a medium sized boat, holding around four people. “Get in”, they demanded. Myers obliged. After everything, he was just glad to be rescued, though deep down he couldn’t care less if as to whether he lived or died now that his dreams were flooded away. “Welcome aboard. We spotted you about a quarter mile downstream. You’re safe now”, the woman who helped him on claimed. He was jaded yet thankful. Then, in the corner of his eye, he spotted the processor, locked in carefully on top of the boat. His stomach twisted. He stuttered trying to find his voice. “W-w-w-what is tha-th-that” he choked out. “A processor we found washed up a couple miles back”, snapped a short young man beside him. “We’ve heard about them before. The staties put them in the drones to relay information. God only knows what this one holds though. We’re hearing that Seattle is fighting hard against this flood. Maybe it could be of good use up there, considering Portland is already in ruins. Maybe we sell it, split the profits, and head as far North as we can. We’re hearing that up in British Columbia things aren’t so bad. So are you in? It’s either that or we leave you back at this shitty old post to eventually get swept away”. Myers began to tremble, but was now again fixated on his shadow as the sun creeped out and beat down on the boat. He worked up to find his voice again, then finally answered.