The Life Union

"Some pretty ladies I saw you with out there Max." Said the barkeeper as he picked up his drink.

"Indeed Nick, but do my ears detect a hint of jealousy in your voice?" Max replied, and after a slight pause to gaze into each other's eyes they both laughed and shook hands.

"If there was any man more worthy to be jealous of, I’ve never met him. How goes the war with your father?"

"That fool?" Max’s laughter ceased as he leaned across the bar. "He’ll never understand a thing I say, and I’ll never understand a thing he does. We’re each speaking a language that the other is incapable of hearing. I talk with the voice of the young, he talks with the voice of the aged."

"Not all the aged don’t understand your youthful chatter." Nick said as he began to wipe down the bar. "I hear you loud and clear." And Nick was aged. Not so much as Max’s father, but aged enough that he couldn’t be considered young. Or maybe not aged, but worn down by the years of hard work since they had all entered the Complex.

Max had nothing left to say. The stare between them was enough of a parting for Max to turn and walk back into the crowd.

As he made his way between the bodies, past the decorated old and young, Max took notice to the unusual repetition he’d never notice. There was something about them, each of them, which looked the same. It was in the way they smiled at each other, at the band, at nothing at all. A free smile, unmoving, unfaltering. It was a smile that hadn’t a care in the world, or maybe it was a smile that was uncaring.

He found a place at the far edge of the ballroom where he took a seat with his drink. He began to think about what Nick had said. Nick wasn’t that old, but he was still too old to see what Max saw. Nick held a point of view that rested between that of the father’s and that of the son’s.

His ideas were not that impossible. He had thought out every precaution, every step needed to make sure no damage was done to The Complex and that the lives of those inside would remain safe. There seemed zero drawbacks to the plan.

Project: Life Union it was called. An attempt to make contact with the post-war world on the outside of the Complex. For all they knew mass tribes of civilization could still be out there and they’d be none the wiser. There simply had to be more survivors and Project: Life Union could once again unite the world.

But his ideas were rejected and his father told him that there was nothing left outside but a wasteland. A bitter cold wasteland where years ago the last of man had died on, minus those who’d taken refuge in The Complex. Yet somehow Max still believed there was something out there for the people inside. But there wasn't a thing he could do. His father was in charge here, leader of the glorious cavern of hospitality.

"Max? Max Hardy?"

Max looked up to find the face of a man he’d never seen before, a tall man of certain authority. "Yes?" He replied.

"You don’t know me, I’m a friend of your fathers. He’s sick, he’s summoned for you."