They weren’t political. They were just tired, hungry and practical. The Enclave had no utopian plans. The people there just wanted to live their lives—even if their lives would be hard, the lives would be their lives.
Oscar noticed what the Enclave did to him. When he chopped wood, or worked in the field, memories of binging on Netflix ran through his head, for weeks, until it stopped. He remembered his cubicle, or more specifically the day he cleaned it out, when he was sent home. He had sleepwalked through his life up until that moment, the moment the routine no longer worked.
Nearly everyone in the Enclave, indeed in the world, had a similar story. The corporations no longer needed them and the corporations controlled everything. The “lucky” ones got unpaid internships that sometimes included food. Those lucky ones slept indoors on the factory floor.
Emmie held her child, their child, Adam and looked at the heart of the Enclave. Small structures built out of found materials. People looking at the hills, the fields, each other. At the end of the day, Oscar would return and sleep, Emmie on one side, Adam on the other. The three had peaceful dreams.
They awoke early, as did the entire population of the Enclave, in the dark to the sound of loud machinery, an unusual sound, a forgotten sound.
Giant forest-clearing drones were flattening the trees on the hills. People gathered, watched silently. “Civilization” approached.
Oscar, Emmie, Adam and the rest of the Enclave sat in a circle, eating quietly, watching each other, trying to set aside their anxiety. The noise got louder, closer and all ignored it—or pretended to.
After breakfast, they all gathered their things, put them into canvas bags and then onto carts. They marched three miles to the west, set up camp there and left the old Enclave to the Frankenstein monster.