Mojave Wasteland

September 26th, 3:01 am

2267

Everything Sydney saw was from a distance. After setting out after Mortekai, he had only spoken to her once, and that was to tell her to return to Littlefield. She responded to his ghostly voice saying that she wouldn't, and then he said absolutely nothing more. He went on about his trek to the mall as if she didn't even exist, pausing occasionally to glance things on the ground over before heading off again while she kept a safe distance between them. She also kept an eye out on their surroundings with her scoped rifle. So far, there was nothing anomalous. It continued that way until their arrival.

Two hundred yards away, she could see the glum outline of the mall, to which Mortekai was walking with a slow, careful pace, his path chosen carefully to make him difficult to spot. Instinctively, she drew up her rifle and pressed her left visor against the scope, surveying the broken walls and searching for signs of battle. From what she could tell, at this distance, the altercation must have taken place inside, considering she couldn't find anything that implicated Damon's mini gun. Most importantly, there didn't seem to be any sentries posted on the roof.

There was something worse.

Her arms went slack, and the rifle began to lower until she applied conscious effort to keep it level with her eye. She passed the instrument over the beheaded, crucified remnants of the Desert Ranger once known as Andre Bolders. Railroad spikes had been driven through his hands, arms, feet and legs to keep him connected to the crucifix. His trench coat was embedded through the skyward prong, rippling in the wind like a flag behind his large corpse. Blood from the morbid wound that had taken his head trailed down his massive chest, dripping to his groin and lower.

A chill crawled up her spine for two very terrifying reasons. The first was that it was much, much different to see the titan awaiting breathlessly, conquered and hanged up like a trophy for travelers to see than having heard of his death verbally. The second was that she was certain this was a trap, and she could end up beheaded and crucified all the same.

She remembered what Colonel Watts told them that day they trained in unarmed combat. It involved not understanding what they were getting involved in until they saw the first hard ass that saved their skin a few times nailed to a cross. Granted, Andre had never saved her life, but the brute was larger than life just looking at him. The stories she had been told about the way he snapped numerous Legionaries in half were superfluous, and now he was little more than . . . bait. A piece of meat being used to lure in another beast.

"Mortekai," she called into the communications built into her helmet. After a few moments of silence, she continued anyway, "It's a trap. They knew you would come. Andre is crucified on the roof of the mall. They're baiting you."

Unsurprisingly, she didn't receive a response whatsoever. Grunting, she spoke loudly this time, "Mortekai, listen to me. Don't go and get yourself killed like this. This isn't what Andre would want. He would want you to stay alive to avenge him."

The continuous silence began to frustrate her even further. With another grunt, she picked up her pace and began jogging after him. It angered her that she had to risk her life just to get the stubborn fool's attention.

"I don't know if you've got comms off. You probably do, so I guess I'm going to have to get really close to you in order to ensure you can hear me."

Again, she was left without a response on his part.

"You fucking asshole. You're going to hear me, like it or not!"

She began running now, straight on in his direction until he turned around and faced her, thankfully before she was in range to receive a nasty dose of radiation. Now that she had his attention, she pointed at the right side of her helmet, urging him to turn communications on.

"Go back," she heard.

Releasing a relieved breath, she began, "No, you go back." Any semblance of submissiveness, at this point, had been vaporized by how he was incessantly stubborn. Until now, she would have found it beyond herself to berate him in any way, or to question his intent because he was almost like a mythical creature of untold wisdom. Wisdom born of hundreds of years of combat. Now, she viewed him as little more than a foolishly suicidal man of the wastes.

"You know it's a trap. What are you going to prove with this?"

She took his lack of response as even more reason to continue. Clearly, he didn't have any logic with which to answer her question.

"Let's go back. That's your only chance at vengeance."

Mortekai shifted his weight onto his left foot and canted his eyes to the ground. He lost himself in a deep sphere containing thoughts like liquid, sloshing and crashing against the shell that contained them in a constant swirl, and when he knew that he couldn't make verbal sense of any of it enough to explain to the corporal, he lifted his eyes to her again.

What Sydney would never understand was that when he looked at her, or so much as talked to her, she wasn't his equivalent, and not in as mundane a manner as considering her his inferior or his superior. It was that he considered her so characteristically different, as lacking in similarities to him as a worm and a sea lion, that he found it difficult to even voice the reasons why he needed to do this. If he did, it would be as if spoken in a completely different language.

The time he had spent working alongside Andre had that effect on him. Over time, Mortekai had loosened his hold on the connections he once held with everything around him except his friend. At first, when the two met while wearing the brown trench coat given to them by Ranger Center, they considered themselves to be suitable vessels to carry the philosphies of the Desert Ranger. Later, it turned upside down, and it became that the reason they continued calling themselves Desert Rangers was because the philosophies fit them.

After seeing so many evil people brought to justice on their travels and after helping countless good people find their way, the wasteland and its ailments eventually took a back seat to the friendship they shared. That fact applied to Littlefield now.

The wasteland was the wasteland. That cycle would continue, Littlefield included, and he no longer had the strength, or the interest, to continue putting any of it before Andre and himself.

He shifted his weight onto the other foot now and answered, way he saw it, without the fluff, "Go back, kid."

The deflective tone he used caused her to grip the rifle tightly.

"Why are you doing this? What are you going to gain from it? So, you go in there and take a few Legionaries with you and end up dead. Some of those guys might be crazy enough to hang around you long enough to put you on a cross right next to him with your head lopped off. What's the message?"

Mortekai was turning again when he stopped.

"Beheaded and crucified next to him?"

The question made it clear to her that he did have his communications system off while she tried to tell him about Andre. Having to elaborate on his friend's grim end made it much, much more difficult to speak than it had been just mere moments ago. She began with a slow, confirmational nod before explaining, "Yes. They beheaded him and crucified him on the roof of the mall. His trench coat's waving in the wind. They're baiting you, Mortekai."

She could hear him take a breath in her communication device.

"They might be."

He turned fully.

"I'm going," he finalized. "Go back to Littlefield."

Way he saw it, there likely were Legionaries waiting for him at the mall, but he doubted it would be a large contingency, considering the likelihood that there was doubt concerning whether he would take the bait or not.

Meanwhile, Sydney watched him go. Staring at his back, she thought about how she didn't want to die. Especially not over an old, stubborn idiot like Mortekai.

There were two different types of drinking. The first was the passive kind. Just a shot maybe, to feel the burn, and then there was the kind of drinking a man indulges in when he feels he needs a little extra something to get through the rest of the day. As Salmons sat there, holding a shot of whiskey in his hand, staring at the dark, ugly, brown coloration of the liquid, he found himself stuck trying to convince himself this was recreational. The more he failed, the more the memory of the private's words stung. It was like his throat had been slit clean through to his esophagus just as he swallowed the alcohol.

It was very possible that his actions from here could cost the lives of all the townfolk.

Pressing his eyes tightly together, he tilted his head back and downed the shot of whiskey almost as a form of punishment and slammed the shot glass down on his desk. With a grunt, he poured another one, and paused all over again once it rested firmly in his right hand. Maybe they weren't in over their heads, and this was just another test that required being resolute to continue on the correct course. Many times, growing up as a deployed Desert Ranger, he witnessed leaders doubting themselves in the face of what their subordinates were saying, and saw the repercussions that could come when a commander falters.

He had set up many defense measures and briefed the town folk on them. Gunner seemed to have been impressed by them, and the young waste landers who answered his call were eager to be the pike formation that repelled the Legion's cavalry charge, whenever it happened. That, and the girl would have her protectrons up and running soon, after all.

Again, he threw his head back and poured the whiskey down his throat, swallowing strongly and, this time, tossing the glass off to the side after he was done. He was relying on children to feel ascertained of his choices. When did that happen? Maybe it was the second Andre was killed. Maybe it was an hour ago when he was informed that Sydney and Mortekai had left. Or maybe it was when he sent the private and the corporal to handle High Town on their own.

There just seemed to be no way around the fact that the world was crumbling all around him these days, and this time, he didn't have Andre's reassuring monstrous presence to rely on. He didn't have Dominguez' battle hardened countenance to remind him that though his Desert Rangers weren't all mutated abominations of palpable strength, they were still sharp, battle ready individuals.

If Mortekai was gone, too, then all he had was kids.

The door opened and Rem stepped inside, walking briskly, holding his rifle in hand but missing his helmet. Along with the wind that swept into the post office, the private's voice poured from his mouth almost like that last shot of whiskey Salmons downed, "I found their tracks, sir. They went off way of that mall."

So he was gone.

Keenly aware that there was no hiding it now, Salmons calmly twisted the cap back onto his bottle of whiskey and began to stand just as Rem surveyed the drink. The firm expression on the private's face disgusted him because he knew the lack of comment wasn't genuine. He could almost feel the doubt festering and then being tossed atop his shoulders to wear as a mantle.

"But sir . . . there's somethin' else," he added, allowing his blue gaze to trail off towards his left, momentarily glancing at a crack in the wooden floor of the captain's post office. "I found somethin' . . ."

Salmons didn't spend too much time being surprised that the private had no comment for his drinking. Instead, he tilted his head back and beckoned elaboration with just an attentive glance.

"Sydney was sittin' on one of them cars in the old junkyard 'fore she musta taken off after Mortekai."

The implications that would surely follow his suspicions were troubling enough to make him shake his head before he continued his explanation.

"There was tracks 'round the area. Well, not tracks, sir. Somethin' like what it looks like when someone's tryin' to cover prints up, an' it looked like they wanted to git in real close where they wouldn't be noticed from that specific location Sydney was sittin'."

He remembered where it was she spent a lot of time. It was on the same car hood that she was sitting on when Salmons asked him to approach her about Dominguez' death. The same location from which her tracks had led her out of the town, following the set of prints that Mortekai left behind after stepping out of his home.

"Someone was stalkin' her, sir."

"Legionaries snuck into the town?"

"Naw, sir. I doubt it. I mean, I coulda missed somethin', but I'd say that's less likely than it havin' been someone already in here, sir."

Salmons leaned back into his chair and thought deeply while Rem stood in place.

"Maybe someone just wanted to listen in on anything she was saying over her comms."

Rem paused to consider it and immediately drew a fact parallel to the claim. Before he could give voice to it, Salmons continued.

"I don't intend to play it off, or forget about it. Just stating a very real possibility."

"Them tracks are way too close, sir. If you just wanna git in an' listen to what someone's sayin', you don't risk gettin' so near. They wanted to do her in, sir."

After that, there was simply no way Salmons could go on about opening up the possibilities as to what those tracks around the corporal's position entailed. The question now was, what should be done?

The second he glanced at Rem, he could tell he had the very same question in mind.

"I didn't go lookin' aroun' that much more 'cause if whoever it was sees me, they'll know we're onto 'em. Either we do two thangs, captain. I go an' take a look aroun', see if I can find which general area them tracks lead so that whoever did it sees me and gits spooked into waitin' a while 'fore they try anythang else, or we do nothin', leave 'em feelin' confident enough to try somethin' again sooner rather than later, which might be a chance to catch 'em."

Needing little time to decide, Salmons stood from his chair and shook his head.

"No. It's time we started being more direct about things. Go see what you can find, private. In the meantime, I'm going to go see Gunner about setting up a town meeting. I'm going to let all of Littlefield know what we've discovered. Our watch saw when Mortekai and the corporal took off, they just figured it was a planned departure, so it's still pretty clear to me that our greatest weapon is our numbers. If we get the whole town to keep an eye out on who might be trying to go bump in the night, we might catch whoever it is without losing anyone."

"Yes sir," Rem nodded firmly.

"Dismissed."

With a salute, the private exited the post office.

Mortekai entered the mall carefully, certain that the active stealth boy he carried on his person wouldn't be enough. It didn't suppress sound, and the post war world had a habit of leaving a plethora of debris on the ground that could give away his position. There was glass, there was rubble, and even the sand looked thick enough to make noise of he stepped on it.

The phantom adversaries he was expecting to be waiting inside faced the same dilemma, but unlike raiders, he had learned that Legionaries were disciplined enough to tread silently. Ideally, however, they wouldn't be creeping around the mall the way they should if they were aware there was an enemy inside. He hoped to be lucky enough to come upon their position and find them cooking, or talking amongst themselves about the glory of Caesar before pumping them full of radiation.

Oh how long it had been since he sincerely hated an enemy. Watching them wail and moan as if their insides were melting before they spit their intestines through their mouths hadn't felt so deserved, nor as satisfying as it was going to feel today, he kept thinking.

Then, there was nothing. Not a single soul awaited him inside.

When he reached the top most level and saw the crucifix all of ten feet ahead of him, he lowered his head and approached, and didn't stop walking until he was standing beside it. He looked over the roof of the mall and absorbed the wasteland as it would have looked from Andre's current perspective.

. . . as desolate as it had been for a long time, even now after Andre had siphoned his life's blood into it for over two centuries, culminating here. In this very moment, finding him nailed to a wooden cross.

"What went through your mind when it happened?" he inquired with a scolding tone. It wasn't until now that he was standing next to Andre that he really put some thought into that, and the question filled him with an overwhelming fury that began to bring tears to his eyes. "You must have not regretted a single second . . . "

He whipped his body to face what was left of him and looked, specifically, to where his face should have been awaiting eye contact.

"You must have been proud. You must have thought," he looked into the wasteland again, watching the sun rise for a second before he continued with a broken voice, "You must have thought that they couldn't take away all of the good things you had done no matter what. Even then, as you died . . . wherever you were. On the ground. Or up there."

His arms raised to just below his hips, elbows pointing out left and right, and he leaned in, shaking his head at the regretful pain ravaging him now.

"God damn it . . . " he concluded, shaking his head before he rounded the crucifix and reached up for the the worn trench coat. The sound of the leather ripping as he pulled it down to him was quickly overshadowed by three buzzing beeps in rapid succession. His eyes zeroed in on the thorough explosives array once hidden beneath Andre's large coat.

Sydney heard an explosion and turned back around. Even in the distance, she could see a puff of smoke expanding into the air atop the roof of the mall.