#boltcutters

You see, Citadel, Gastown…there’s things they never knew. Us Wretches knew what they didn’t. How to starve but live. How to get through the sand storms. Before-time wordburgers the Immortan didn’t want to remember. What those from the Wasteland say, and why they go back out again. I’ll give you the Tell of this Citadel. You might not believe me. But it’s still true…

We know the Citadel stones used to be underwater, long, long ago. The aqua-cola we drink from deep-down is old, too. It soaked down when this was a green place, millions of days past. That was before we broke the world with too many vehicles and wars. Before we made the Wasteland. One day, the aqua-cola here will run out. Unless it rains. Then, the water will refill, and the Wasteland go green again…

We know why we’re here, at Citadel, instead of out there. Some of us came from the Hot Zone. Once, it was more shine than Citadel, a Before-time city. The end of the world took it. It’s gone fukushima, radioactive, become the Hot Zone. Mister Dead, he’s touched everything there. Buzzards hunt you. There’s salvage, but it’ll make you sick, half-life. Curses and ghosts follow when you leave. Out beyond Gastown, between here and the Hot Zone, it’s the never-never, the Wasteland. Best to be here…

We remember when this place became Citadel. The whitefellas stole it from the traditional people. They dug and drilled and brought up the aqua-cola, left it for the taking in the Fall. Soldiers claimed it. Then the Immortan stole it from them. He came here with his fighting mob, ready to claim it. But his mob and his guns couldn’t fight their way in. He had to use the Wasteland, a great goanna-lizard, to slink a rope up Citadel’s cliffs. That rope, he and his best mate climbed it. They came out three days later, blood-soaked, winners. They had the Citadel. But they’d killed too many, killed too hard. They’d lost their souls to Mister Dead himself. And they sent Mister Dead more souls every day that they ruled…

We witnessed the cast-out Wives of the Immortan. He threw them down to us in the hard years, when there was no mercy anywhere. Most, they were shredded, their hair saved for luck. One or two went over to us. Try and find them, in our crowds. There was one who walked out into the desert, into a toxic storm. A sacrifice – she did it herself. She gave herself to the Wasteland to seal a curse and bring the Immortan down. But curses are hard, and hers went wrong. She honed the Wasteland’s hunger for all Citadel blood…

In the Wasteland now? There are the road warriors. Maybe they never die: maybe new fighters make old names live again. Night Rider, Gyroman, Mad Max. There’s caravans too, rich with armored rides. They come together and clash in road wars. Sands roll away, giving you salvage, and roll back in, taking what they gave, leaving you mad with misery. Mister Dead, he’s waiting there, for the fool and the unlucky…

We know what happens when Mister Dead takes us. Valhalla isn’t for us Wretched. But there is something, somewhere, for everything has a soul. The Wasteland does, too. A strong soul, an old soul. That’s what Citadel wanted to forget, most of all. Because sometimes, instead of Mister Dead, the Wasteland takes you. Takes your soul…

When the Wasteland calls, you have to go. Citadel, your bunkmate or breeder, the good aqua-cola, you leave it all behind. You won’t feel your own soul again until you do. It happens if you’re cursed, or you’ve done a bad thing, or the Wasteland’s own soul needs you to do something. That’s why the road warrior left, the day of the revolution. The Wasteland still had him. I don’t know if he’ll ever come back. Some people, the Wasteland kills them. Eats them. Others, they get their lives back, but they’re never like they were…

When you want to live, you’ll do anything. Us Wretches know that best of anyone. The Wasteland wants to live, too. Like it did in the million days gone. It can’t do it alone, no more than we can. It wants to be what it was before…