An hour later, while they were setting up camp in a clear crevice between two large rock formations, Hardy started cursing.
"God fucking dammit! Where the fuck did it go!?"
Justin paused in cleaning out Barrel's exhaust, paying close attention to the raiders across the fire. In his experience, most raiders were one minor inconvenience away from shooting everyone on a good day, and this sounded a hell of a lot worse than that.
"What's up, Hardy?" Matt asked.
"My fucking ammo bag! Look-" He held up the torn remains of a strap, loose threads dangling from patchwork leather and cloth. "Who knows when the hell it came off! All my fusion cells were in there!"
"Hardy you moron, you didn't notice losing your ammo bag?" Bethany snapped.
"I don't fucking know, this lunatic has us climbin' over rocks all fucking day!" Hardy pointed at Justin, who made a point to not say anything and continued setting up his tent.
"Well how many do you have left?"
"I don't-" Hardy shrugged and pulled out his pistol. "I mean, my gun's full, so 30?"
Bethany looked over to Justin, eyeing the bags and straps on the Supercomputer. "Yo Scavver, whatcya got in there?" She asked, her tone demonstrating the question was merely a formality.
Justin sighed. "I dunno, I got some fusion cells around but I need 'em too. This shit don't run on sunlight and happy thoughts." He put his screwdriver in his teeth and stomped over to the Supercomputer, pushing bags aside until he found the right one. He pulled out a handful of fusion cells. "I can spare a few if you promise not to shoot me with 'em. And these ain't freebies, either." He tossed them over to Hardy one at a time, counting out ten.
Silverado was notably quiet. Justin's hands curled into fists, but he reminded himself to hold his tongue. Worst case, not getting paid for those cells was still better than getting full-on robbed and left in some ditch. He'd gotten through worse. This was not the hill to die on.
"You know, with the right materials and know how, you can actually turn expended cells into working ones. I mean not on a one for one, but four, five cells will get you enough for one." He offered.
"That's great, you can have my trash when I'm done. Call it even."
"That's not what I- eugh." Justin shook his head and went back to what he'd been doing. Eyebots needed repairs, he didn't have time to debate the advantages of scientific know-how with a bunch of raiders. "Barrel, hey-" He tapped his screwdriver on Barrel's lens. "Roll back over you ain't done."
Barrel obliged, and Justin returned to tightening up the laser rifle attached to his underside. One of the screws was getting finicky, but he'd made a bad decision on the part he'd used initially and was having a hard time finding a replacement. Hopefully once he got back to civilization he'd be able to find someone with the right scrap - otherwise he was going to have to weld a whole new casing for it, and that was going to be an ordeal. Currently he was just keeping a close eye on it and hoping it lasted, otherwise Barrel was only going to be able to shoot downward. He flew, so that wasn't necessarily useless, but…
"Hey."
The voice startled him and he dropped his screwdriver. Barrel rolled back over with a little beep that sounded for a moment like he was laughing and puttered off.
Bethany watched Justin as he scrambled to pick his screwdriver up.
"Yes! Hello, hi. What do… you want?" Justin asked.
"I just… kind of feel like we got off on the wrong foot." She said, brushing a few strands of hair behind her ear.
"Oh… really? I mean you don't really come off as the type to-"
She punched him in the jaw.
She probably expected him to go down. The punch packed a wallop. However Justin barely moved, legs sturdy in the power armor frame. He turned his head and let out a rough breath, blinking the stars from his eyes, and then looked back at her.
If she was taken aback by his response (or lack of one), she didn't show it. "That's for your fuckin' mouth." She snarled. "Piece of shit Follower, thinking you're so high and mighty, so much smarter than us fucking poor ass raiders."
"Wow, projecting much." Justin knew it would get him punched again, but the words came out of his mouth anyways, and sure enough, she smacked him hard in the face once more. This one made his ears ring, and he tasted blood. To his right, Barrel's lights turned red and the eyebot let out a low beep, swiveling his gun to point at Bethany.
"Barrel, stand down." Justin said. Barrel let out a small chirp of acknowledgement, but his lights remained red.
Bethany smirked. "Won't even fight back. Typical."
"I've just seen enough people ashed in my day. And trust me, if I wanted to kill y'all I'd have let you carry on your merry way." Justin spat. "It's the fucking big leagues up here. And you know it, I can tell; folks don't last long without instincts for that sort of thing. You know you're in shit out here. You need me, but you're too proud to admit it. That's fucking stupid. Pride gets you killed. Anger gets you killed. So rage all you want, but it ain't gonna change what happens. You're gonna go off to your little tent, sleep or get high or whatever the fuck you wanna do, and tomorrow morning we're all gonna keep walking toward Seatac." He gestured back toward the others with the end of his screwdriver. "Now run the fuck along, I got work to do."
With that he turned his back on her. "Barrel, now!" He snapped, and the eyebot resumed his earlier position, rotating so he could see the laser rifle. Bethany hovered for a few more moments, fists clenched. She wanted to keep hitting him, he knew, but she wouldn't. She probably wanted to do a lot more than that. In a couple days, when they made it as far north as he was willing to go, he might have to pay the piper for getting himself mixed up in all of this. For the time being, though, he was safe.
That being said, when he pitched his tent that night, he put his back to the woods. Nothing that could sneak up on them in the darkness scared him more than what was already in his camp.