Open the Gates, and Admit Him at once...

No word is spoken, no sign exchanged, but the gate before you opens, and within it stand 20 Amazonian Guard's Women, assorted firearms, with their fixed bayonets, held at parade rest.

You can scarce believe your luck, but stalk forward through the gates into the colony for the first time in over a month and a half.

Somehow a tiny part of you is disappointed to find the place exactly as you left it when you took this trip the other way about a month and a half ago. You would have hoped that something would have changed in your absence, that you would be missed or needed enough that some evidence would be here of the lack of you, but most of you realizes that after over 20 years with every man save one in the colony being sent to his **** at the age of 19, you, like the rest of them, were EXPECTED to never come back. The thing that is going to shake up the place is not your leaving, but rather your return.

As you are escorted through the village of West Gate, one of the four gate communities which lie along the edges of the colony, you swiftly realize how right that assessment was: everyone is standing and starring, one woman drops a jug of shine which shatters on the flagstones of her front walk, then runs back inside hollering for her children to come and see.

By the time you reach the inner gate you are escorted by a veritable parade of lookie-lous and well wishers, as well as a handful of glowering teenage men who had dreamed of being in your shoes in a few years time. As you process further on through the colony you pick up a small army of the incredulous and amazed, till at last, around high noon, you come to the gates of Wexford Holler, the 'capitol' if you can call it that, of the colony. The colony's around 3000 souls are divided into dozens of tiny villages scattered around its expanse, each numbering less than 200 people, of which the 'gate' villages are the largest. Wexford Holler is ironically one of the smaller ones, occupied only by The General and those he either trusts implicitly or wants to keep an eye on, such as your mother.

There is an expectant hush, everyone waiting to see what happens next: looking to you, for the first time in your life really, as their leader and commander.