I live, I die, I live again (Mad Max: Fury Road fanfiction)

Chapter 7 - Up

The Ural is on a straight course, now. Regular, comfortable, nothing like on the rough ground of the Badlands. The Road, the Fury Road. The one used by convoys loaded with Guzzolene, Aquacola, bullets and all the Productions. The one the Buzzards have so often attacked. In the rear-view mirror, far away, Gastown's columns of smoke rise and fade on the wide blue sky. And in front of their tires, miles away, the Citadel peaks; its three mineral towers topped with the green of their crops. No vehicles from the refineries are in sight. Neither at the front nor at the back. Only the ground scrolling, scrolling in beige and ochre hatching.

It's been more than ten minutes since Nux has said anything, and Volta looks at him through the corner of her goggles. He's looking down on the road below, over the retracted spikes of the sidecar. This silence does not please her. Now she knows enough not to like it.

— Are you dead already, glupyy ?

He shakes his head several times and moves his leg, probably uncomfortable because of the metal splint.

— I'm fine. Going great.

That's what he says, but there's an abnormal distance in his eyes. Volta speeds up but the Ural can't go any faster. The only thing she wants is that he doesn't fall asleep, so she backfires the engine.

— The platforms are in sight, she says, and those words seem to stir up some of the adrenaline he has left.

— Tower One, he says. That's where we need to be lifted up.

He forces himself to sit down without slouching and allows himself to be exhilarated by what he sees. Closer, closer. At any given moment, the Citadel seems within reach.

— The Millrats are the ones who make the Wheels turn, but it is the Lifters that we have to convince to take us up. They choose.

— We'll hang on.

This statement turns the War Boy's gaze to Volta. Hanging on. For the first time since they stormed out, he laughs. And as if to wake up his machines as much as those of the Ural, he starts banging on the side of the sidecar. Volta rushes. Again and again, and little by little the shapes become clearer. The Three Towers, the ridge crops and hydroponic bays, the cranes planted on the heights like so many black thorns. The huge screaming skull carved in stone, the symbol of the deceased Immortan. And the water that – suddenly as they approach – cascades down from the black mouths connected to the great pumps of the Aquifer. Like a long white strip, the Aquacola pours out. Down towards a crowd that they guess to be large, more people than ever. The human mass invades the centre of the Towers, all around the Citadel and even into the desert. There, they slowly distinguish a profusion of vehicules. Of all kinds. From all horizons. The tanks of the Gastown Polecats are there, the rumors had not lied to Babushka. But also many caterpillars from the Bullet Farm and cars of all kinds, coming out of they-even-don't-know-where. It's just as if every hole in the ground had released living beings that had been holding up for too long. A tide of humans whose clamour can be heard even through the V8s.

— That's crazy.

Nux's posture, leaning forward over the mechanical scarifications he inflicted on himself, is explicit. He's never seen anything like this here before.

— That's totally crazy.

They make their way through the stopped vehicles that their occupants have left without really worrying about them being stolen in the mechanical density. Closer, closer, until they can no longer move forward without risking crushing the fringes of the crowd. Wretched people, starving and riddled with tumours, as there have always been, but other faces, other gaits. Women, men, children. One of them is carrying a crow. Even some old people. Bins, jerry cans, kettledrums. Volta stops the engine of the Ural and they both stand in a moment of astonishment, watching what the Wasteland had never known.