Early on a cold September morning in the Appalachian mountains, Rebel Max will stand eyes closed, feeling the sunlight warming his face. It will be the first time that Max has seen the sun in weeks;
The high, wooden walls of the fortified Appalachian State University campus, that is reinforced by thick sheets of steel, also has a roof that was added with the help of federal assistance in 2042 to prevent excess water accumulation in their territories. Occupants of the fort are forced to stay inside due to persistent rains during the late summer and into the early fall, and the unpredictable storms that rage all year long. Max hates the weeks when the southeastern coast of the US is inundated by rain, which occurs on a normal basis, but he is thankful that his wife, Mary, and their son Zach are safe compared to the fates of many extended family members who refused to relocate as things deteriorated when the weather raged meaner and meaner into the late 20s and 30s. The fort is big, there is room to spread out, to jog miles around the perimeter, and the roof over it all is massive and took the greater part of the 30s to complete. It is made from sturdy triangles of glass trussed by metal beams as a rim that covers the top circumference of the fort’s outer walls — like the cover of a massive, plastic Starbucks coffee cup–, and there is a retractable top like a swimming pool cover that extends from the farthest points east and west when engaged to meet in the middle. It moves slowly, so the roof usually closes during that calm before the storm when Max can sit on a rock and soak up the sun when it is highest and shines down through the dome’s open top; there are a number of scientists who dedicate all of their time to divining the rhyme to the embittered reason of nature’s fury and they time the closing of the dome to the coming of the worst storms. It worked well enough, everyone who had retreated into the fort in 2027, about 30,000 people, survived major storms that had massive casualties in the western tip of NC, and in TN, and GA. There are similar structures in WV, LA, PA and the one in the great lakes region is by far the biggest, and is the location where the US federal government operates. There are domes in the west as well but they are designed to keep the heat out. Though the lives of humans on earth have been drastically altered, the capitalist engine still grinds domestically and the US government still maintains its function of creating laws, fielding an army and minting currency. Even inside the domes, life closely resembles the life of an average city before homes and communities were destroyed, albeit more crowded with people who have to deal immediately with problems that would have eventually caught up to the human race if no drastic climatic changes had occurred and humany never retreated into domes, things like waste disposal and energy consumption.
Max currently works in waste disposal, a far cry from the life he enjoyed before the dome where he made a living pushing papers in a law office. Now into his late sixties, Max manages crews of workers who collect garbage and think of interesting ways to dispose of it without polluting water sources or harming the population in the dome some other way. Max makes sure there is a schedule of workers to drive around and do pick up, and he also assists Frank, who was the Clerk of Court in his town before the changing weather, in determining the best way to handle the fort’s garbage. Most of the forts in America simply piled their garbage somewhere outside their walls until the trash hurricane of 2033 that damaged the fort in north TX with garbage from the interior southeast. The trash hurricane was a sight to see, the coverage captured by drones showed the normally gray swirls of winds that make the conical body of a hurricane was choked full of junk and it damaged the roof of the TX fort and killed hundreds.
So Max worked with Frank to tend the garbage in an expedient manner that wouldn’t endanger the rest of the country that was already beleaguered and holding on to life. Their system involved limiting the amount of garbage each person could produce, which of course led to corruption. Everyone in the fort was given a bag with their name on it and were only allowed enough refuse to fill the bag over the course of a week. Max, though, the rebel that he is, would accept more garbage from those who were kind enough to share their rations with those who never seemed to have enough. The weather had shrunk the available food supply and most people survived on canned food that was devoid of real sustenance, but families with young children and pregnant women were rationed the most nutrient rich foods that they would horde and sell to the highest bidder; currency in the forts was mostly clean drinking water and batteries. It is Max’s way of contributing to a good that sometimes escaped the frightened masses huddled in the fort, waiting for the trash storm that would wipe them out, hope for one last thing to remind them of a brighter yesterday.
Rebel Max will smile at the sun while sitting on a rock, because he likes the sun and because he is getting a promotion. He and Frank will manage their trash system so well that they will travel to the fort of the federal government at the great lakes and be tasked with managing garbage all across the country. And Max knows that he can make things better, curb people’s more vicious nature, with the promise of ridding their environment of the things they no longer wanted. Who cares that the system he developed with Frank was not sustainable, you can only bury garbage for so long before the whole world is walking on it, but before that happens, Rebel Max is determined to change some hearts and minds.
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