Deadman

As I walked out of the tent and headed back toward the room where I’d kept my things I passed by a number of the Khan’s wives, servants, and surprisingly his daughter. Atlan was much as I remembered her. Same dark hair and sharp features, broad and strong. Though she now sported a metal leg that looked as if it had been built specifically to push down the pedal on a motorcycle. I also noticed, though it was in the early stages, that she was pregnant. She said nothing as we passed by one another, merely nodding at me.

I returned the gesture and kept walking. I found myself disturbed by the sight of her. Not because of the situation she’d put me in in the Black Woods, but by her pregnancy. I couldn’t tell why the thought filled me with dread, but it did.

I returned to the room I’d been given and gathered my things, checking everything once to ensure that nothing had been taken. After that I walked out of the main tent and made my way to one of the smaller garages near the outskirts. There was a man, covered in piercings made of bolts and screws, who nodded at me as I approached.

“Here for Betty?”

“Yep. Don’t think I agreed on that name for her though.”

The man shook his head. “You don’t pick the name. The bike does.” He moved over and opened up the garage door, revealing my motorcycle. It was a simple vehicle, built for utility rather than comfort or speed. I moved over to it and placed my pack on the rear, and my rifle in the rack on the side that was built for it. I ran my hands along its black paint.

The mechanic tossed me the keys which I caught, and popped into the ignition. I wasn’t too worried about fuel. I was promised that the tank would always be full when I came to retrieve it, and besides that I had a decent amount of gas squirreled away in my deadzone that I’d begun collecting after receiving Betty. Owning gas without the Khan’s permission was a crime, but I doubted anyone would be checking my deadzone for it any time soon.

I turned the key, and the bike roared to life. In the past I’d avoided driving. The sound of engines can be dangerous. Drawing raiders, beasts, and making you an obvious target to anyone who can hear it. Most people who drove vehicles rode in groups so large that to attack them was suicide. At this point, in spite of my cautious nature, I considered it suicide to attack me as well.

I gave a nod to the mechanic and pulled my goggles and bandana up. I may not feel a need to hide my face anymore, but that didn’t mean I wanted dust in it. I revved the engine and kicked off. I saw a number of other riders as I moved out of Fette, and we exchanged nods of acknowledgement as we passed by one another. Once I got onto the main road, the vehicles I passed became fewer and fewer, until I was entirely alone on the road. After about an hour of riding, I received a notification.

Congratulations Citizen! You have earned a rank in Driving! From wagons moving us toward our manifest destiny to the model T, American progress is always driven forward!

The skill was still a far cry from the level my walking sat at, but it hell, I’d take it. I maneuvered the bike around some rusted out cars and gunned it when I hit a nice long stretch of road that appeared clear of debris. It was then that I noticed I wasn’t alone on the road. Several buggy-like vehicles moving in an intercept course, trying to cut me off. I looked at them, trying to locate the drivers so I could activate my freeze ability, but between the movements of my bike, and the cars, I wasn’t able to get a clear line of site.

I pulled my pistol from its holster and gunned the engine. The raider cars had a good angle to block me off, but their vehicles were hunks of rusted metal. Mine was an Iron Horde original, gifted by the Khan, and kept in tip top shape. There was a good chance I could simply outrun them, though that wasn’t my plan.

I adjusted my speed, gauging when I would be cut off and doing my best to cut it as closely as possible. When they were fully committed, I gave it all I had and cut between the approaching cars. They didn’t have time to turn or brake, and so instead slammed into one another in an explosion of sparks and metal.

I slowed down the bike, and turned around to see if there were any survivors. I heard a few screams, but noticed that the ground around the wrecked cars was starting to quiver and shake. I saw the head of a large furry creature with a single razor sharp tooth pop out of the ground next to one of the raiders that was crawling away from the wreckage. It ran over and started digging into him. After that, another, then another, until the screaming stopped. I felt the ground beneath my own bike begin to shake and took that as my cue to leave. I was fairly certain that those beasts would take care of any stragglers for me.

I rode through the rest of the day without issue. I saw a few wasters off the main road that avoided me, ran over a snake the width of my leg, and heard a gunshot at one point, but wasn’t able to locate the source. Overall, nothing unexpectedly dangerous, and nothing I couldn’t handle. I reached Jasper’s windmills and towers late in the evening, and dodged around them to make my way straight for my deadzone and boat.

I parked the bike on a small patch of old pavement just a short distance from my home. Most of it had been eaten by the ever growing swamp, but there was enough left for a small car to park on. I took a moment to admire the way the black paint of the bike reflected the green lightning that quietly arced across the surface of my lake.

I pulled myself back over to my boat, grabbed a tarp, rolled back, and threw it over the bike to cover it. I didn’t think anything would happen to it, but there was no reason to risk disrespecting the Khan. He seemed oddly amiable to me. Aside from the hidden shotgun. There was no reason to risk changing that by allowing Betty to be damaged.

There was no sign of Gus, so I assumed he was off in the further reaches of the zone prowling. Still, I’d need to make a point to do some hunting for him in order to make sure he continued our agreement.

I got back onto the boat, got myself a meal of mutated snake, and pulled up a large glass bottle of tea that I’d tied to a rope and lowered into the lake to cool and irradiate. I’d brewed it before I left Pott’s. Delilah had been kind enough to help me after learning I’d killed butcher Pete for murdering Lydia. Whatever hard feelings she’d had for me regarding my questioning and Lydia's other paramours seemed not to matter compared to that. I thanked whatever rotted radiated gods there were left that my own personal life had so few complications. Sure I almost got killed pretty regularly, but that was a small price to pay.

Once I was done eating, I updated my maps and notes, then pulled a small container I had hidden in the walls of the boat. I pulled out the two large, wristwatch like devices, one that looked like a gun with a clear piece of glass instead of a barrel, and finally a shoebox sized black box.

I put the gun shaped tech to the side. It didn’t seem like the kind of thing I should experiment with inside, and grabbed one of the wristwatch devices. I tried to clasp it onto my arm with the screen on the top of the wrist and found that it didn’t quite fit correctly. I flipped it around to have the screen on the inside of my wrist instead, and the device suddenly made a grinding noise, and I felt the cloth lining inside expand and seal around my list. I watched it calmly, grabbing a combat knife I had loose on the table in case I needed to cut it off rapidly.

The screen flickered on, and showed a simple display of an ascending row of solid lines. I pressed a button next to the screen and it flickered for a moment. After that the bars began ticking down very slowly. I moved my wrist, shook it, but nothing happened. I hit the button again, and the bars stopped descending, and began almost imperceptibly to tick back upward. I went to remove it from my wrist and found that it wouldn’t budge. I considered cutting it off, but I didn’t want to just destroy a potentially useful piece of old tech. I could break my hand and slip it through, but I could also just continue wearing it. It was surprisingly comfortable, and the minor difference in weight could be managed without trouble.

I shrugged, put everything else away, and decided to go to sleep. I hadn’t slept in three and a half days, so even my enhanced stamina was wearing more than a little thin.