Endtown by Aaron Neathery for August 20, 2013

Not much of a choice.

Wally needs to go where the love is. He needs to go with Holly because he knows up top better than she does. Perhaps they can make it to another community like Endtown.

Wally: “There’s something I need to tell you first, before we go. While you were asleep, you know? They paved over Topside. To get out of the colony, we have to take the stairs up… There’s no way stations or vending machines along the way, so you need to make sure you’re rested before you start out…”

I have mixed feelings about this turn of events. On the one hand, “Topside” is dangerous. On the other, Holly needs time to heal, and Wally already knows how to survive Topside.

Whither she goeth, do he goeth to?

To Wally: When you were recovering from a head wound and wanted to get out of Endtown, Holly chased you down and persuaded you to hang around until you got better. Step up to the plate now, and do the same for Holly.

Doc said she needed a “guide”. Who better than Mr. “Lived by Myself on the Surface for 6 Years”?

Holly:Baby this town rips the bones froAnnotatem your backIt’s a death trap, it’s a suicide rapWe gotta get out while were young

Yep this looks like season 4 and it’s not September yet.

@NabuquduriuzhurNot sure the whole planet looks like surface we’ve seen to date. It may only appear that way. Somebody created the flying boat Marx had.

I’m hope that this new story arc is going to explore more of that new world and less of what we’ve seen in the previous trips topside.

Maybe there are “pockets” of life that are thriving and even happy. Otherwise this future is a very bleak soap opera that is doomed to collapse upon itself.

Also, there are still questions to answer that were raised in the first season. I think Aaron has a plan to expand what we think we know and I’m looking forward to it.

Maybe for the greater good, Holly and Wally need to leave the Hell of Endtown and find their own Heaven. It’s better for Jacob to reign in Hell than ruin the Heaven they find for the Endtowners who deserve it. Traditionally, Hell is deep underground and Heaven is high above. Holly and Wally might find or create a new better Endtown above ground where Topsiders and the old Endtown can’t touch them.I still hope that Jacob follows a “Jacob’s Ladder” story where he redeems himself and Endtown through the crucible of the upcoming hell times. Then maybe if Holly and Wally return, it will be a joyful reunion instead of a vindictive one.

The problem with Holly’s reason for leaving Endtown is that the problems she’s mentioning are part of the human condition. Any human community she goes to will have conflict and if that conflict is not well managed it can erupt into violence. I also doubt that any other community will be as nice as Endtown. According to “Ask Linda” on “The Endtown Underground”, a lot of the other communities are re-purposed sewers and subways. They would provide some protection from Topsider patrols and the satellite, but it would be an adjustment for someone like Holly.Wally needs to insist that Holly stay in the hospital to recover, just as she insisted when the situation was reversed. If nothing else, it will make little sense to try a long foot journey with supplies if Holly is still facing the effects of exhaustion and dehydration. Also it would give Wally time to plan and make preparations. Hopefully he’ll start thinking when he gets over the shock.

What I would have Wally say

“If you want and need to go, we will.”

“What I am asking for is that you take a few days and heal, rest, and prepare. The journey ahead will not be easy. I have been there. You know that I have been there. I hope that you will listen to me on this.”

“But where you go I go. Please do not leave me behind in this. I will not stop you if you feel that this is what we need to do.”

“But please try and give us a week. A week to pack supplies, rest, heal.”

In my/Wallies head. “A week for us all to start thinking straight again. As my next stops will be the Doc’s and Mallards to get some help.”

I am optimistic that, after adventures topside, our heros will return to Endtown. We still have much to learn there and, after all, that is the name of the story.

the people of endtown at least regret doing what they did to her, the topsiders consider her a non-entinty, literally a resource. I bet she’d outright murder Mr. Bunnyface if she ever found out her captivity was entirely a result of his conspiracy.

this is where Linda steps in…..

We all create our own hells on earth (or heavens). You can’t run from what’s inside. You have to make the change from within. Seems like everyone in Endtown has yet to figure that out. Rock on Aaron.

Well….time for Wally to run off with Holly’s clothes.

Wabbit,I think Holly is a little too traumatized to reason with right now. The best that Wally can do is buy some time for her to calm down (under the guise of needing time for preparations) Then they can talk about this again and see if she REALLY wants to go.

Three Steps,We probably haven’t seen any more of Roxie because we haven’t been to the Endtown Cafe since the end of the Milk Trial. When we do, we’ll probably see her there with the other waitresses. I hope she feels suitably horrible about what she’s done.

Wondering about the extent of the dusted areas. As the setting suggests mid-continental US (if not in name, then in effect) the vast areas with substaintial populations would require equally vast nuclear/zero bomb saturation strikes. So there may be several thousand miles worth of dusted terrain. I’d hope (and my fan fiction assumes) that areas so distant from targetable populations may have survived, or at least suffered only slight/temporary Amesworth exposure, and have a recoverable biology. (my fan fic goes even further, and assumes areas hit with “conventional” nuclear fallout may not have “needed” zero bomb attention, so Chernobyl-like islands of survival may exist)