Timeline

Shattered Illusions

Fractals

Frontier Dreaming

The Great Wasteland Train Robbery

Maybe

"Last call for the Revenant Express! Last call for the Revenant Express dee-rect to the Midessa Compact! Get on board or get to walking because that's the only other way you're getting to Texas!"

The train, the eponymous Revenant Express, was a behemoth of a machine. It's hulking dual engine car towered above the passerby flitting about beneath it, desperate to get on board and cross the Famine Belt.

Once upon a time America's bustling region of farmlands and bountiful harvests, the Belt was now a barren, hostile Wasteland. The former states of Arkansas and Oklahoma had been spared overwhelming nuclear bombardment in the Great War, however, their water and soil had been poisoned by toxic radiation nonetheless. While other cities and states were burned in an instant, the Famine Belt's decline had been slow, painful, and gradual. Hordes of cannibalistic mutant packs prowled the land now. To cross it on foot was… well there was a reason the proprietor's of the Revenant Express had the caps to sustain the juggernaut of a vehicle.

Clinton (owner, operator, and chief engineer of the Revenant) was old enough to remember the Famine Belt as it was. Luscious fields of grain from horizon to horizon. He remembered fleeing on his pittance of a railway patrol car as the food riots boiled over. He remembered hiding out in a forgotten train depot as his flesh started to rot off and scab over. And he remembered the day he'd lost an arm to one of the Trogs prowling the wastes for a meal.

He'd promised he'd never go back. The Famine Belt was a land of death; it was best left forgotten. But the fiduciary weight of a long, long life weighed on him. The Watauga Wasteland (what remained of Tennessee) was not a kind place. Crops still grew and scattered townships had taken root throughout the centuries, but it was like anywhere else in the Wasteland. Harsh and unyielding. So after decades of struggling by, Clinton turned to what he knew.

The Railways.

It was a mad plan. The Famine Belt was a hostile death to all who wanted to cross it. There was a reason caravans spiked far north before crossing to the Commonwealth in former New England. But Clinton had long theorized that the best way to not get torn limb from limb in the Famine Belt was to not stop moving long enough to get caught.

So the Revenant Express was born. Clinton's masterwork was a ten car passenger liner, armed, armored, and ready to run the blitz. Ten slashes of red paint decorated his engine compartment. Ten slashes for ten successful runs. After ten he'd stopped counting that as a success. Success for the wasteland runner wasn't in the actual passage. It was the passengers.

Brahmin barons, oil profiteers, scavengers who struck literal gold, anyone with the caps to pay their way on board for the two week journey across the Famine Belt. Clinton had met them all. And they'd paid handsomely for the privilege to travel on his train in luxury and peace. Year over year, Clinton managed to haul new "amenities" aboard with his grease stained crew. And year over year new fools paid into it while the same struggling masses kept turning up to buy their way into steerage. Clinton had seen them all. As a ghoul, he was old. He'd met all sorts of passengers and refugees and travelers, but none quite like the two before him now.

The would be two person boarding party dashed out of the steam billowing from the coolant tower on his engines, gasping from their madcap sprint upon hearing his call.

The first he knew. Tall, sun dried, and dusty, the Courier from the Mojave Express. Mr. Knox.

The second he'd never seen before. She was quieter than Mr. Knox. Where the Courier had an easy smile and a warm hello, his partner was sullen. Her eyes were intense, suspicious, and calculating. She had a predator's eyes, emerald pools that were ready to see you bleed.

"Who the fuck is this?" Clinton barked at Knox, waving his lone arm at the girl.

"Nice to see you too, Clinton," Knox said, not answering the question. He patted his pant's pockets for a moment, then slipped a hand into the metal chest plate he wore and fished out two battered tickets.

"Here we go. Tickets! For the both of us."

"You haven't answered my question," Clinton retorted, narrowing his radiation blackened eyes at the girl. She glared obstinately right back up at him.

"I'm Ava."

"That's Ava."

Clinton ignored the phantom desire to cross his arms and settled with planting his oil covered palm on his hip. After a moment of fixing Knox with a shrewd glare, and checking to see that the girl was still unblinkingly focused on him, he snatched the tickets and stowed them in his overalls without checking. He jerked a thumb over his shoulder at the door and started to go.

The girl, Ava, was still staring at him until Knox grabbed her elbow and pulled her along. She yiped in surprise and blinked in shock.

"Come on, you weirdo. Stop staring," Knox said to the girl and waved back to Clinton. "Thanks, Clinton!"

Clinton watched them go, Knox dragging and the girl swatting at him. He didn't release her despite her protests until she dug her heels in and cocked her arm back to punch him. Out of the corner of his eye, Knox must have seen her winding up and he let her loose, but it was too late. With both arms free, she reflexively straightened her stance and let the punch fly anyway, socking him right in the face.

Knox's head snapped to the side, but like the stalwart Courier he was, he didn't fall. Ava clasped her hands to her mouth in shock like the punch had surprised her too. She opened her mouth to say something, but Knox held up his hand, the other massaging his jaw.

"Ow. That was…ow."

"Sorry!"

Very gently Knox reached out to pat her once on the shoulder before grabbing a fistful of the battered brown coat she wore and pushing her forward.

"Let's go!"

"Don't push me!"

"Get on the train!"

"Or else what?"

"What do you mean or else what!? We're not fucking walking!"

They bickered loudly as they boarded, one pushing past the other both verbally and physically. Clinton shook his head as they disappeared, silently praying to the god he once knew that they would somehow manage not to be a headache. The Mojave Express were good customers, but Knox was…well, he was whatever he felt like when he felt like it. And that girl…

Clinton shook his head and stepped aboard. She was trouble. Hopefully, the Courier felt like controlling trouble today.

Knox and Ava made their way into the passenger compartment, winding through various other passengers who could afford to ride in the mid-section of the train. As Knox had told her, they'd be bunking up in what was essentially a hostel on rails. 32 people in their car, bunk benches that they'd be living on, and not much else. Supposedly, there were private sleeper cars on the train, but as he told it they were wildly expensive.

They sidled into their booth, Knox throwing his backpack and Ava's duffel up into the shelf above them before taking his seat. Ava fell face first onto her bench and laid with her legs sticking out into the aisle. Knox tapped her foot with a boot to incite her to move, but she just kicked back out at him.

"Would you move your legs? Please?" he asked, frayed patience weighing his tone. "I'll see if there's any Fancy Lads Snack Cakes on board this thing if you do."

Knox had taken to bribing Ava with the pre-War packaged food she so adored whenever she was feeling particularly petulant. Which was becoming all too frequent. He suspected she'd figured out he'd procure sweets if she did. But she sucked her legs in to their booth and out of the walkway, so even if she had descended to childish terrorism, it was at least working for the both of them at this time.

"Find Yum-Yum Deviled Eggs," she said, mouthing the words out of the cushion pressed to her face. "I've got Fancy Lads in my bag."

"Since when?" Knox asked, sliding his rifle up into the compartment as well. "I know you don't have the self-control to have had them in there since DC."

"I got them at the market in Harpsville," she said, rolling over onto her back and shimmying back against the wall of the train car.

Knox paused as he secured his things and slowly looked down at her. "You didn't buy anything in Harpsville. You don't have any money." Ava remained quiet and Knox dropped his head back with a groan. "You kleptomaniac pain in my ass! Stop…stealing shit!"

"Get me deviled eggs and we'll see… about… that," Ava started to reply slyly before drifting up and staring at a flickering lightbulb on the ceiling.

This had become their dynamic during the long trek out of the Capital Wasteland and into Watauga. General animosity combined with a burgeoning degree of respect. Ava wouldn't allow herself to admit it yet, but maybe even friendship.

Knox had found her outside of Rivet City. One of the industrial pipes the town used to pump in fresh water had become clogged and infested with Mirelurks and ghouls. A troop of Rivet City security forces had gone missing during an investigation. Ava had been Wandering through as she was wont to do and had stuck her neck out to dive down and find them.

She had found them dead and added to the pile of ghouls that the mirelurks had congealed together in a giant, writhing blockage. She'd blown it out, but had been unable to get herself out as the waters flowed free, sweeping her deeper into the network of pipes and tunnels.

After talking with Harkness, the captain of Rivet City's guard, Knox had tracked Ava down deep underground. She'd managed to fend off any of the remaining mirelurks that had come after her, but she was shivering and weak with fever. A ghastly, old wound on her stomach was rife with infection and she was rejecting stimpaks. She'd weakly tried to fend him off as he injected her with one, but he hadn't understood until she'd started convulsing. Stimpak sickness.

But Knox didn't suppose he'd spent so long tracking her down just to let her die, so he threw her over his shoulder and carried her back to Rivet City for some proper medical attention… which she had not been thrilled about upon waking up in a hospital bed. That had been a less than pleasant altercation.

Ava had been frantic, simultaneously desperate to get away from the sterile sheets and smell of antiseptic, but equally desperate to beg the doctor for Mentats of all things. Knox saw the response coming as did Ava. She was flat out refused and nearly thrown out of the city on her ass. Ava had earned herself a reputation as an addict in Rivet City, and a surly, violent one at that. Honestly, that was partially how Knox had tracked her down. The trail he'd tracked had led through a series of dealers and flophouses. But she'd never been a Mentats fiend near as Knox could tell. That had struck him as odd. Odd enough to investigate at the very least.

It was a distasteful tactic in Knox's mind, but procuring chems for Ava seemed like a viable method to secure her cooperation. He wasn't, after all, looking for her for his own benefit. If he needed to get her high, well, he'd do it. He'd followed her out of the city and brought her a tin of Mentats, spiced up with an off-label "Party-Time" recipe he'd picked up on the road years before.

As soon as he showed them to her, he knew she wasn't looking for a fix. The chems weren't a high to be chased. He could see in her eyes. It wasn't addiction plaguing Ava. Knox wasn't a doctor. He could patch a bullet hole with the best of them, but matters much deeper than that were beyond his kin. The illness weighing on Ava was above his paygrade, but he knew what addicts looked like. She wasn't it. The Mentats were medicine.

She hadn't trusted him at first, but she'd taken the Mentats. It was weeks before she explained it all to him. The scar on the side of her head, the cult that had operated on her, cutting out a small part of her brain, and the resulting demons unleashed on her mind.

He still didn't understand it, but he believed her. For Ava, that was enough.

The Mentats stabilized her, focused her. Knox was a savvy enough scrounger that they'd been able to keep her well supplied, but in the few moments they'd had to stretch her doses he'd seen the look on her face as she heard the whispers of people not there with her. The chems weren't a permanent solution, Knox believed Ava knew that, but they were a damned sight better than being without. Even with the side effects.

Mentats were a powerful nootropic developed before the Great War. They'd boost memory, creativity, analysis, and could even ward off degenerative neurological disorders. Hence, Ava's hunt for them. They also tended to produce random bouts of euphoria and intense focal binges. Ava could stare at something for full minutes without blinking or breaking focus. And could all to often ended up as did.

It wasn't an attention lapse, it was in fact the opposite. She was drowning in her own chemically boosted attention span as she inadvertently poured every ounce of focus she had towards whatever had caught her eye. She'd developed a penchant for walking flat into Knox's back or into walls as she stared, wholly consumed, at a passing cloud. The first time it had been funny. And the second. Well, it was almost always funny, but Knox had the good heart not to take advantage of it and tried his very best to pull Ava back to reality.

He clapped his hands in front of her face as she lay hypnotized by the lightbulb. She blinked owlishly and jerked her head back, smacking it against the window with a loud crack. Knox grinned. He was a good man, he was not a perfect man.

She looked like she was going to take a swing at him again, but the train lurched underneath her, nearly sending her rolling to the floor, as the train started to move. Whiteknuckled, Ava clamped her hands to the side of the bench, swaying with her eyes shut.

"I… don't like this," she growled. She opened one eye and looked at Knox. "Is it going to be like this the whole time?"

"Not the whole time," he replied, tipping his hat back and cracking his neck as he settled into his seat. "It'll get better once we start moving a bit faster."

Ava's eye closed again at the word faster. She didn't like the idea of faster. Things shouldn't move this fast. People walked and people ran. And if you didn't have to run, you didn't. Trains...they should have died out when the bombs fell. Vertibirds too. She hated flying in a vertibird.

"Distract me, or I'm going to puke on you," she threatened as the train rumbled forward again in another lurch.

"Distract you?" Knox asked with a wry grin. "How am I supposed to do that?"

"If you think I'm bluffing, you will be sorely mistaken," Ava muttered as more blood drained from her face, turning her normally dark skin a pallid green.

"Alright, alright," Knox said, taking pity on her and grabbing her shoulder lightly. "Sit up. Swap with me. It'll make it better."

"Why should I believe you?" Ava asked suspiciously even as she allowed Knox to maneuver her up and over.

"Place your trust in the fact that I've ridden a train before and that I really, truly, don't want you to vomit on me."

She would have laughed if she'd had any faith in keeping her breakfast down. To her surprise, Knox was not messing with her and as soon as she settled herself into his seat, she felt the drag of the train on her stomach balance out with her equilibrium. She sighed and slouched down in relief. She opened one eye again to look at Knox.

"You still need to distract me."

"Fine," Knox acquiesced. "How about a game?"

Ava sat up, both eyes open, and ears perked. "A game? What sort of game? How do I win?"

Knox listened to her rapid fire questions with an eyebrow raised. Ava maintained her intense stare, but he could see the faintest blush creeping up her cheeks at how fast she'd shot the questions out.

"It's a guessing game, spitfire. We try and guess stuff about the other folks in our car. Like… that guy over there. I bet he likes classical music, makes him feel fancy."

The man in question was seated at the far end of the cabin and he was fiddling with a radio that Clinton had thoughtfully installed for passengers. The man was dressed in a battered, pinstriped suit. Once white and red, it had very clearly faded to yellow and burgundy. Everything about the man from his poorly combed hair, greasy goatee, and round spectacles did indeed suggest someone who wanted to appreciate the finer things, but didn't quite know what those finer things were.

He twiddled the radio knob and Beethoven came on. He clapped his hands together and returned to his seat.

"Ding, ding! Points Knox," Knox said as Ava gagged and stuck her tongue out, muttering to herself, "fucking hate classical music."

She glared acidly at the radio and then at the man who'd had the audacity to turn it on before glancing at Knox. "Points. You said points. How do the points work?"

Knox shook his head slightly and gave her a bemused smile. "Ava, there are no points. The points don't matter."

Ava threw her head back and groaned. "UGH! This game sucks!"

"Well, I could kick your ass at cards again…" Knox said, reaching for a pocket that she knew he kept a battered deck of cards in. On the trail, he had very quickly demonstrated his proficiency at card games. She suspected he was rampantly cheating, but had yet to catch him in the act.

Immediately, she shook her head and reached forward to swat his hand away. "No! No! No cards. I want to win."

"Oh? I couldn't tell."

Casting her eyes around the train car, Ava scrutinized each of the other passengers, one and then the next. She chewed her tongue as she thought, sticking it out and tapping it against her lip.

"Okay. That guy has his hand on a gun in his pocket. She's hiding something in that suitcase she's keeping between her legs, and those two… those two are really fucking packing under those jackets."

Knox rolled his eyes. "Thanks for the situational awareness report there, super chief. But I think you're missing the point."

"Speaking of points, how many do I get?" Ava responded, ignoring Knox.

"THERE ARE NO POINTS."

Ava scowled and returned to slouching with her arms crossed. "I fucking hate this game."

Knox kicked her lightly in the shin and nodded back to the passengers. "Come on, try again. What if I told you one of your guesses was dead wrong?" Ava ignored him and he sighed. "I'll give you fifty points if you guess again."

He'd barely finished speaking before Ava was turned around and crouched on her seat, staring back at the rest of the passengers. Beethoven finished and Vivaldi started on the radio.

Once more she examined the passengers, scrutinizing every detail about them. The man with his hand in his pocket. She could see the outline of his gun barrel, and the distance between his wrist and the outline in his coat fit for a hand holding a gun. Not him. The woman was practically sweating nerves and her eyes kept flicking to the case. Not her. So that left the two burly men she'd identified before.

They were big, beefy guys wearing matching letterman jackets. For their oversized frames, the jackets were even larger, but still taut over the men. Clearly they were stuffed into bulky armor underneath. She could see the bulges of grenades and more. Not to mention the lengthy assault rifles they were carrying.

So who was it? They all made sense. What the hell was Knox talking about? She looked back through again. Then once more, and then she saw it.

The assault rifles.

The weight was off.

The way the men were holding their rifles while they sat, the barrels should have been tipping the other way with the weight of the giant ammo drums they'd installed, but they weren't. Which meant the drums weren't filled. No bullets. No weight. Empty guns.

With that little nugget of info she looked at them with fresh eyes and she could see more. Peeking out from the opening in one of their jackets was a baseball, not a grenade. And it wasn't the glint of metal shining through the holes in their jackets, it was more cloth. Just padding.

It was a hell of an act the two were pulling, but it had gotten her. She'd have thought twice about messing with them.

"It's them," she said, looking back to Knox and sliding back into her seat. "They're faking it." Knox nodded and Ava stuck her fists in the air. "Yes! Fifty points! I win!"

"I don't get to go again?"

"Nope, game's over. I won," Ava answered, shaking her head and revelling in her fifty points.

Conceding the absurd defeat, Knox gave a small bow with a flourish of his hand, and then stood up to grab his weapons cleaning kit from the side of his pack. He undid the leather cord that held it together and unrolled it across his lap. Each tool had its own little pouch and unfolded to let him neatly lay his pistol in the center.

With practiced ease, he plucked his pistol from his side and began to disassemble it. Ava had marvelled at the gun since she'd first laid eyes on it. She was ashamed to admit that her first inclination was to try and acquire it somehow, but she'd managed to outthink that particular greedy urge.

Knox's gun was a precision piece. Ava had always simply used whatever weapon was nearest at hand and when it broke, she was on to the next. Not Knox. He cared for his tools, respected them. He held the philosophy that if he cared for his weapons, they would care for him.

She could see that care at work in front of her. The pistol had been thoroughly modified. It was a .45 auto. She recognized it from pictures as a long-time military standard, but it had been ousted in the rank and file by the standardized 10mm pistol. This gun was slimmed down from the photos. It's hammer had been customized and the sights and trigger had been filed down, slimming its profiles. Most notably though was the snake skin grip that Knox was carefully oiling, and the etching along the barrel. Thanks to the Mentats, Ava's Vault education sprang to mind and she was able to roughly translate her way through what she recognized as Greek.

And the light shineth in the darkness… And the darkness comprehended it not.

A Light Shining In Darkness. It was a hell of a pistol.

His rifle was like that too. Not in the same way, it had no niceties or frills added to it; it was a simple, brutal repeater that was meticulously maintained and cared for. The thing never jammed. Ever. It's single point of decoration was a "bull" brand burned into its stock. Other than that? Nothing. It was a rugged weapon, elegant in its efficiency alone. She'd seen Knox thread a shot through a raider's eye at two hundred paces with nothing, but the iron sights along its barrel.

As she watched him clean, she pondered his mechanical motions, his process. The same every time. There was rhythm to it, a beat as he went from one task to the next, checking, cleaning, and rechecking every part of his weapons.

She pulled the battered 9mm pistol she kept in the holster under her arm and turned it over in her hands. It was a piece of shit.

"You want me to clean that when I'm done?" Knox asked, not looking up from the specks of dust he was brushing from his pistol's insides.

"I don't need you to clean my fucking gun," Ava said, unable to keep herself from bristling. She wanted to say yes. She wanted to say that she enjoyed watching Knox clean his weapons. She wanted to say these things, but she didn't. "I know how to clean a gun," she insisted.

"I'm sure you dedicated an article from the Milsurp Review to memory, but I've seen how you treat weapons. That thing's a bad day away from backfiring in your hand," he said, nodding to the pistol.

"Well, I like the Milsurp Review. The comics in the back are funny. And anyway, where'd you learn to clean a gun?" Ava said defensively, still unable to bite back her temper.

Knox chuckled and finished reassembling his pistol with several satisfying clicks. He gave it one more visual once over before spinning it back into the holster hanging from his belt.

"There is a gunsmith in Arizona." He pointed up at the brush gun stowed above. "The gunsmith that made that there rifle, actually. He taught me when I was a kid. Rather, I asked him to teach me as he was refusing to pay me for 'sub-standard' cleaning of guns in his shop until I got better."

Ava watched him pull the rifle down and hold it out to her. Gently, she took it in her hands, feeling its weight and the smooth wood and steel it was composed of. Someone had made this… Growing up in a Vault, things weren't handmade. They were generations old hand me downs created in a factory. Out in the Wasteland, things were scrapped together, but nothing of significant craft. She handed the brush gun back to Knox. It was as beautifully functional (if not moreso) as any weapon that had been stamped out in Pre-War factories.

The radio squealed and the wannabe fancy pants darted to it in order to coax more music from it. This time Bach. Ava grit her teeth against the symphony.

"Why do you hate classical music so much?" Knox asked, noticing her rising irritation.

"It's not the music, the music is beautiful," she ground out through her clenched teeth. She kept looking over her shoulder at the radio. "It's just that it's all that ever got played in Tenpenny Tower," she finally managed to get out.

"Ah, makes sense. Well, look why don't we-"

"WOULD YOU TURN THAT SHIT OFF!?" Ava barked, startling the radio man with the sudden animosity.

The man mumbled something under his breath, but made no move to turn it.

"SORRY, I COULDN'T HEAR THAT OVER THE FUCKING RADIO!" Ava shouted, standing up into the aisle and facing the man down as the rest of passengers watched with grim curiosity.

To his credit, the almost finely dressed man did not back down. He fixed Ava's irate glare with a haughty one of his own. With dramatic intent, he reached out and turned the radio to full volume.

Ava took one step towards him, but Knox caught her arm.

"Are you going to kill him? Because if you are, I think I really ought to know."

"Oh, I'm not going to kill him," Ava growled, snatching her arm away from Knox and flipping her battered pistol around in her grip, wielding it like a club.

The man shrunk back in his seat, the temporary bravado he'd felt evaporating as Ava stalked towards him. But true to her word, she wasn't going to kill him. She didn't even look at him. She smashed her pistol through the radio, cutting off the music with a jagged screech as her beleaguered gun splintered into its disparate components against the electronic innards of the radio.

Panting, Ava turned back to fix Knox with a fierce glare as he laughed.

"What!? What are you laughing at!?"

A/N: Hello! And welcome to the opening Author's Note for The Wasteland Train Robbery. I like to do one at the beginning and end of a story.

First off, if you had no idea what's going on, that's because this is a sequel! You can go read Shattered Illusions: Fractals to get yourself up to speed.

Second off, if you liked this chapter, give the story a follow as I will be posting a new chapter about once a week. If you really liked it, go ahead and give it a favorite or a review.

And thirdly, see you next week.

-The Author