Deadman

Shortly after the card game we made our way out of Medina and started heading northwest. My allies were quiet, which I appreciated. Occasionally Mercy and Leah would exchange a few words, but they were mostly business. Unfortunately, while I appreciated their quiet and restraint, I was less appreciative of their pace. They were much slower than I was. I had a much longer gait, and my walking skill and experience traveling made the pace at which we traveled as a group almost unbearable. Add in the fact that we needed to skip around deadzones because of their weakness to heavy rads, and I found myself resigned to a slow, roundabout trek.

I considered pushing ahead, but all of this territory was unfamiliar. I’d traveled the roads in Horde territory for a long time, to the point where every ruin was at least known to me, if I hadn’t traveled directly through it myself. STAR territory was different. They liked to keep track of who was travelling where, and required papers for citizens who were travelling between settlements. Their roads tended to be safer overall, but for someone like me, that was a lot of trouble to go through for walking from one place to another.

It wasn’t all bad though. About mid-day I received a heartening notification.

Congratulations Citizen! You have earned a rank in walking! A great way to see the beautiful vistas of this great nation

Great. The trip was already paying off. With interest even.

“So, Donovan, what’s Horde Territory like?” asked Mercy, ceasing to provide me with her namesake by breaking the meditative flow of me putting one foot in front of the other.

“Probably the same as any place. Sand, settlements, raiders, radiation, monsters.”

She tilted her head. “We don’t have raiders in the republic.”

“What happened to them?”

“Killed them, mostly. Exiled a few.”

“Good method.”

“Does the Horde not kill raiders?”

“Oh, they do, but only when they become a big enough problem to worry about. Most settlements fend for themselves.”

“And people allow them to rule?”

“Allow?”

“They don’t vote in new leadership, or revolt?”

“No voting, and they’re quicker to quell a revolt than to kill raiders. Besides, most of the settlements like the autonomy. Do you vote for your leaders in the republic?”

She nodded.

“What if you pick the wrong guy?”

She laughed. “There’s no picking the wrong guy. The right guy is always the one who is voted for. It’s as the Angel of Liberty wills.”

That gave me pause. “The what now?”

“The Angel of Liberty. Her will, and that of Saints Washington and Jefferson, is interpreted by the prophet.”

“...okay.” I decided to leave it there. The Republic seemed a little too weird for me to invest any headspace on at the moment. I needed to stay focused on the task at hand.

As we walked, the wind began to pick up. Then dust started to blow in our faces. Soon we found ourselves in the midst of a massive sandstorm. My geiger counter started to trill more loudly as the sand surrounded us.

“We need to find shelter! There are some ruins to the west!” yelled Leah.

I sighed. The dust and rads weren’t an impediment to me, and this would cause the trip to lengthen even further than I’d prefer.

We almost made it to the ruins when a hail of gunfire hit the ground where we’d been standing just a few moments before. Leah, Graves, and Mercy started booking it for shelter, but I took a different tack and threw myself to the ground.

I heard a few more pot shots, and then the gunfire slowed down. The dust was thick, but inside it I could detect the faint scent of gunpowder. I began crawling slowly toward it, drawing my new shotgun as I did so. Thanks to my ‘neither rain, nor sleet, nor snow’ ability I didn’t have any trouble actually moving through the storm and my nightvision and goggles provided more visibility than anyone else should have in this situation.

As I crawled, I started hearing more bullets firing. One gun in particular was going off roughly every ten seconds, and the sound it made was so loud it felt like it was reverberating in my skull. Eventually I closed in on part of the group. There were three of them, each was wearing road leathers and thick goggles. What exposed skin I could see was covered in boils or lacerations. They looked to be half dead from rads.

They hadn’t noticed me yet, so I took the time to slowly crawl around them, and line up a shot. There was one directly in front of me, all attention focused on the ruins, and another just a hair to the left of him. I raised my shotgun and fired.

The one directly in front of me evaporated. His torso exploded and his limbs blew back with such force that they skipped across the ground like rocks across a pond. The one to the left of him screamed as his legs were blown out from beneath him. I raised the shotgun to fire on the one that remained, but before I could pull the trigger there was another head rattling shot fired, and the man’s head burst and the rest of his body tumbled backward several yards. That told me that the shooter was on my side. My guess was that Leah’s rifle had come into play.

I made my way toward where I smelled another group. I passed by several more headless bodies. This group had close to twelve men, and they were much nearer to the ruins. I watched as one of them took a step, and disappeared into a cloud of viscera and dust as an explosive went off underneath him.

Before the rest of them could react, Graves appeared where their friend had been standing. He held his hammer high and slammed it down onto the head of the man nearest to him. That man’s head was smashed down beneath his shoulders with a crunching noise. Graves didn’t let up, pushing right into the middle of them, each blow of his hammer felling another one.

I joined the fray. Firing the last shot from my sawed-off, and drawing my sword. From there it was just a matter of cleanup as Graves and I cut off any avenue of retreat and either bludgeoned or cut down every last one of them. At the end of the fight he gave me a slight nod, and retreated back into the ruins. The rad’s likely starting to affect him. I noticed, as he walked away, that several shells fell from him as he moved, each looking as if they’d smashed into a wall. Whatever he was wearing underneath his cloak, clearly offered a lot of protection.

I made a final scan of the area, and when I was certain there were no new smells, or sounds, I headed into the ruin as well. It didn’t take me long to find the building that offered the most protection, I pushed my way in, and found a pistol at my face.

Leah lowered it, and gestured for me to come inside. “I really need to stop doing that to you.”

I nodded. “I’d certainly appreciate it.”

Leah looked around the group. “Everyone okay?”

“Yep!” said Mercy.

Graves just nodded, and I followed his example.

“Good. We’ll be stuck here until the storm passes.” She glanced at me. “Well, most of us will be.”

“How did you see them with your rifle through the storm?” I asked.

“Thermal scope. Let’s me see things through their body heat.”

“Can you mark them for arrest with that?”

She smiled. “Yes. I can.”

“Where’d you find it?”

“Old bunker. A distant way to the west. It was the last one that was functioning unfortunately.”

I nodded, assuming she was lying. I probably wouldn’t have told anyone where to find gear like that either.

The group had just proven they knew what they were doing in a fight. I wasn’t sure of exactly what kind of view the thermal scope provided Leah, but even with the advantage it provided she managed to make headshots on every target in the midst of fierce winds and plenty of cover. Mercy, I assumed, had managed to place a mine in exactly the best place to maximize the damage, and she did so quickly. Graves’ skills spoke for themselves. I was still curious what kind of armor he was using, but I doubted I’d get more than a nod or shake of his head if I asked about it. Something like that could spare me a lot of holes.

I checked my notifications.

Excellent work Marshall! You’ve successfully performed a secondary goal of your job ‘Combat’! You’ve earned 60 Patriot Points!

That was good. I’d made my money back from what I’d spent at Bill’s pretty quickly. Though there was still some profit to be made.

“How do you wanna spread the loot?” I asked.

Leah shook her head. “I don’t need any.”

I look at Graves who shook his head no, then to Mercy.

“I’ll take some of the ammo. Could use the gunpowder.”

I nodded, I thought the lack of interest in profit was a little weird, but hell, that left all the more loot for me.