It had just been her for so long after they hit land in Australia that she was surprised to see another human, running in front of a giant truck driven by other humans. The courier crouched and came toward them, hoping for water in that tank, hoping not to be killed on sight.
The man running in front of the truck shouted when he saw her, and she held her hands over her head as she stood. "I need water! I've got my own containers, just please, I'll trade whatever you want for some water." The huge truck stopped, and the man with scarred lips took her pack off her before patting her down, removing weapons from her person as he went while a woman with a mechanical arm held a gun trained on her head.
"What clan are you from?" The woman asked.
"Clan? I come from New Vegas. I have no clan, or none that I can remember." She slowly moved one hand to reveal the scar on her forehead. "Guy shot me in the head for control of Vegas, and it scrambled some things up."
The woman seemed to weigh her words. "How good are you with that gun?"
"The best, ma'am. I can reliably take the head off anything within the range of this scope. What do you need done?"
"Just like that, huh?" A man jumped out of the truck and took off among protest from the others, and she held still when the man with the scarred lips found the knife in her boot.
"Careful with that, she's real sharp. take the hair right off your arm." The Courier watched as they went trough her gear. "May I please have a drink? I'll shoot who ever you want." She resisted the urge to lick her lips. "Do you want bullets? I don't have many, but I'll trade what I have. I have medical knowledge," She offered up. "I could remove those tumors, stitch your people up if you have materials. Please," She swallowed convulsively and rested her hands on top of her head. "Anything you want."
"You came from that direction? Directly?" The woman with the mechanical arm gestured to one of the others, and the blond ran to get a bucket and start filling it.
"Not directly, no. From the north. I can show you a map." She slowly moved one arm and gestured with her fingers to the scarred man. "Press the button closest to my wrist, it should come right up."
The man studied the Pip-boy for a moment before pressing the button. "Oi!" He backed off when it beeped.
"Sorry, I had the volume up pretty high. May I show you the map?"
The woman kept the gun trained on the Courier as she twisted her arm a little to see the screen. "Is this thing attached to you?"
"Yes. It keeps track of my bio-metrics and ammo, mostly. It's a radio receiver, and a holotape player." The Courier managed to meet the other woman's eyes. "Are you running from someone?"
"What's it to you?" The blonde had come back with a bucket of water, and the Courier managed to resist dunking her head first thing and wasting the water.
"You have a look about you. I need to get to my bag to refill my bottles. May I-"
"Go ahead. We could use another gun. How are you with moving vehicles?"
She hesitated, looking up at the war rig. "I've never seen one move before today. But I've fought my way off a boat before. I've fought Deathclaws, giant scorpions, and the Legion. I'm very good at trial by fire, ma'am, and I won't disappoint."
"Giant scorpions?"
"Deathclaw?"
"Creatures across the Saltwater. They do, however, require some rain. Unlike the lot of you."
"Rain?" The scarred man asked, watching the careful way she filled her containers, one at a time, before picking up the last quarter of the water and lifting it to her face to drink and soak her head.
"Water, falling from the sky. I... You all live very differently than I've ever seen. You want me to gun from on top of this thing, right?"
"Yes."
"Show me how to climb on it, then, while it's sitting here, so I don't have to figure it out on the run. This seems like an unexpected stop."
"Nux, show her. What's your name?"
"Six. Or Courier, whichever you prefer."
"Nux, show Six how to crawl around on this thing."
"Let's go."
She put her things back in her bag and stowed it in the cab before climbing up the rig after Nux. He showed her what moved and what didn't, what would bear her weight and what would not. "You've never been on a rig before? What about a motorcycle? Driven a patrol car?"
"No. Everything where I came from got fried in the bombs, way back."
"But you know battle?"
"I do. I won't let you all down. But tell me how you fight. I want to know everything you know."
They stayed on top of the rig for some time before he showed her how to climb around underneath the cab and into the engine block, which he said not to do unless Furiosa told her to. "Think you got it?"
"I do." She saw a glimmer of a shape through the haze of the sun and turned to face it. "I'll need my weapons back. I mean, I'll share, if you're short guns or bullets."
Nux nodded slowly, and they climbed down to get Six's gear. She tucked loaded pistols into their holsters all around her person and handed the extra pistols and shotgun over to the woman Nux had called Furiosa as she gathered her bands of grenades. "Where do you want me?" She saw the shimmering figure getting closer and pulled her rifle around to aim at center mass until he was close enough to identify as the man who had run off when she first got there. He dropped bullets at their feet and gestured at her.
"Get more ammo."
"Help yourself to the guns." He gave her a sharp look. "I'm serious. Anyone who knows how to use them can grab one. They're useless sitting in a bag. I have a few holsters, if you can get them to stay on."
Everyone got back on the rig, and Six pulled her goggles back down over her eyes before climbing onto the back of the truck in the rear gunner's cab. The motion made her stomach turn at first, and she breathed very carefully to avoid throwing up the water she'd drunk.
It was later that Nux came to check on her. "Seen anything?"
"No. Just sand. Where are we headed?"
"They call it The Green Place. Furiosa was born there."
"I see. When was the last time you slept?"
"Before we left the Citadel. Two days."
"Get some rest. I won't let anything get your redhead."
"She's not mine," he said quickly. "She used to belong to Immortan Joe. She's far too Shiny for me."
"Shiny?"
"Like Chrome."
She nodded slowly. It wouldn't be the first time she picked up a new dialect. "When we stop again, I want to take a look at those. They look like they're blocking your veins."
"Aye, they do. Don't want to sleep. I get night fevers."
She frowned. "Tell me more about how you feel. I think I could help you."
He gave her a rundown of symptoms as she nodded encouragingly and made notes in her Pip-boy. "So, what do you think?"
"I think I can help you. But it might take a while. I can give you something for the pain, if you want, and I'll keep watch while you sleep. Drink some water." She handed him one of her bottles and pulled out the doctor's bag that held all of the medicine she'd collected back in the USA and on their ship's route. "May I check a few things? I just need to touch your hands and feet, and check your pulse. Does your head hurt?"
"All the time. Go ahead," he told her when her hands hesitated above his. Her hands were warm and calloused, and he could see the scars on her arms in the moonlight. "What got ya?" He ran a single finger over the deepest claw mark on her collar bone.
"Deathclaw. They're these huge, ugly creatures that try their level best to tear your head from your body if you ain't careful." She carefully felt at his joints. "Tell me if anything hurts. May I feel around your lumps there?"
"Careful, they hurt all the time."
"The lumps, or what's around them?"
"Both?" He shrugged. "Everything hurts out here. I can't tell what's what, you know?"
She nodded. "Of course. Here, tell you what. the second I can look at some of your blood through this, I'll let you know if I can help." She held up a reflector microscope.
"Alright. Thanks, mate." He leaned against the wall of the rear cab and looked at her thoughtfully. "You came across the water?"
"I heard tell of this place through some sea merchants. They needed a hired gun with a strong stomach, so I came with them to trade. They got taken off by some guys with spiked vehicles, and I hid long enough to get the hell out of there. I would have left, but I don't know how to drive a boat."
"You got lucky. Them bastards would as soon torture you as... well... You're whole and shiny enough, they might've wanted you for breeding stock."
She gave a short laugh. "I can't bear children. There's something wrong with my insides."
"Then they would have used you for something else, maybe, but you still would have been stuck in hell."
"Then I'm glad I found the lot of you. Get some rest. I promise I'll wake you if anything interesting happens." She'd folded her bedroll to sit on, and shook out the blanket for him. "Here." He curled into the small space beside her with the blanket wrapped around his shoulders. His eyes didn't close until she'd settled back into a more comfortable position with her hand on his shoulder for balance and her thigh against his arm. She let him sleep until he woke from his first nightmare in a cold sweat, then asked him to keep watch while she slept.
He seemed glad for the task, and she nodded off next to him as the sky began to lighten. She slept until Nux shook her awake two hours after sunrise. She groaned and rubbed at her eyes under her goggles before she sat up. "What happened?"
He shook his head. "Nothin' yet. Thought I might've heard a motorcycle."
She nodded and sat up to drink some more of her water. "We'll sit back to back up here and watch. They've got at least two sets of eyes on the road up there, we should have the same back here."
Nux nodded and took up his new position. The Courier had the thought that he would've made a good companion in the Mojave, or even in the Capitol. "How many moons are you?"
"What?" She kept her eyes on the surrounding landscape.
"How old are you?" When she didn't answer right away, he told her, "I'm nearly two hundred fifty moons, or close to it."
Six did some mental math, then went over the numbers in her head again before replying, "I think... we still used old-world time and I grew up in a Vault, so maybe three hundred or more?"
He nodded, even though he knew she wasn't looking at him. "Bombs fell across the saltwater?"
"Yeah. We don't have any rigs or bikes or anything. A lot of buildings are blown up or burned down."
The truck stopped, and Furiosa got out and started yelling to what Six saw was a woman up in a tower. Six crawled out of the rear cab with her rifle ready and waited until Furiosa turned and waved her over. "Nux," She tilted her head toward the ladder, and he went ahead of her, dropping the last few feet to the ground as she made her way carefully down and cautiously over to the group of women.
"An' who's this one?"
"Courier Six," Furiosa spoke up.
"I came on a boat from the United States of America. Or what was, I suppose. Meeting your Furiosa was fortunate."
"Careful, we may still die yet."
They talked about the Green Place, talked about how they'd passed it, how the water was sour and irradiated. When Furiosa walked away, Six spoke up. "I have seeds that grow in quagmires like that. Called punga, they can absorb radiation in the body."
The old woman with a satchel turned her head. "Let me see." She knelt next to Six as the younger went through her satchel and pulled out a plastic bottle that rattled when she shook it. The Dag peered over her shoulder, and Six tilted her head so the blond could have a better view. The old woman tilted the bottle so a few seeds fell into her palm and peered at them curiously. "Never seen anything like them. Must be native to your home. They might not take here."
"Yeah, but they're meant to grow where nothing else does. It's worth a shot anyway. Take some with you."
Everyone got ready to camp down for the night later, and Capable moved to block her path to the top cab. "Yes?"
"Nux said you think you can make him well."
"I believe I can help, yes. The tumors are the problem, they're making him anemic."
"You'd better not be lying."
"I'll know more once I look at his blood. I promise I wouldn't have brought it up if I didn't think I could fix the problem." She took a long look at the redhead. "Tell me what you're all running from."
They sat together in the light of a fire lamp. Max regarded Nux carefully as the younger man watched them from the top of the war rig. "Is she good?" He jerked his head toward the two women.
"Which one?" Nux watched them, leaning over a book and pointing to pages.
Max paused, considering. "Both."
"Six thinks she can make me better, if we can hold still long enough."
"The redhead?"
"I dunno. They're close over there." Six put her arm around Capable and tucked a lock of red hair behind her ear.
Max raised his eyebrows and scanned the horizon, keeping an ear out for engines and an eye out for lights. "Good luck with that, mate."
Nux shook the Courier awake halfway through the night. She groaned and rolled away from Capable's back as she sat up. "Nux?"
"Yeah, just me. Your shift on watch. You and one of the Vuvalini."
She nodded and moved to her knees in front of him in one smooth motion. "Okay. Keep her warm, okay? I don't want to wake her to move." She put her hand on his shoulder to help her stand and kept it there for a moment. "I hope I can help you."