The inside of the post is still; there's a fine layer of dust over everything. Niylah's quarters were trashed. Her sheets covered in blood, medical supplies scattered on almost every available flat surface, and all of her things were still generally where she normally kept them. What the hell was going on; fear pooled into the pit of her stomach. Jadoe dropped onto a clean corner of the bed and spread her legs wide so that she could lean forward and hang her head between her knees. After a few deep breaths, she stood and began to grab anything she could use to carry supplies out to her cart.
If she was overreacting, she'd owe Niylah so very much; not only for the goods, but for breaking trust. She might never get it back. That caused her to pause for a second. Drag in a deep breath before it shuttered out. She set aside her worry about what could possibly happen between her and Niylah. It took forty-five minutes for her to take the bulk of anything that could be used within the compound. Another fifteen to secure it all and she mounted up. She took a long look at the building she really liked and left.
The ride took a little longer going out than it took going in, as she guided the horses around the rougher parts of the road. She hit the fork between Polis and the Compound and made the split decision to try and gather as much as she could in the city. She'd never managed to spend her entire budget, had been allowed to keep the excess for other trips; she planned to spend it all.
Thunder rolled in the distance, but the air hadn't changed; it was still heavy, still hot and dry. It seemed as if it was prematurely dark, her mount was skittish, and it was all she could do not to turn around and go home. She knew to most she was being irrational, but she was almost positive that if she had any scientific equipment, it would validate her gut feeling. As she got closer to Polis, the storm that seemed to be rolling in unleashed more forks of lightning followed by deep rumbles of thunder. A mile out, Jadoe pulled up short, tipped her to the side. Under the now rapidly moving wind she could hear the roar of a crowd of people.
She sat for a bit, trying to figure out what was going on. Nothing came to her so she clicked her tongue and began moving forward, but a sudden deluge over the city and accompanying screams had her draw up short. What the fuck? Wreck-it tried to rear up, but Jadoe tightened her thighs and pushed her weight down, forcing the horse to calm. The woman shook her head. The supplies she had, she'd make do with. She carefully pulled back on the reins and began the arduous task of getting her spooked ride turned back towards the compound. She tethered him to a tree and got Rekka pointed in the right direction. The time it took caused her to grind her teeth in frustration.
She only made it a few feet when a desperate voice called out to her. Brow wrinkled, Jadoe twisted around and caught sight of a small group of people hauling a hand cart, running as fast they could towards her. One, a woman, was waving her arms, pulled ahead of the others and shouted for her to stop. The woman was close enough for Jadoe to see that she had the scars of Azgeda maring her pretty face.
"Help us, the rain that burns is falling on Polis! We must get to Ice Nation lands. We must hurry to the formed stone houses." Jadoe stopped her mount and glanced at the sky. Rain that burned; sounded like acid rain and the only way that would happen, with the earth the way it currently stood, was radiation. The formed stone houses were buildings that were predominantly made of concrete and would be the safest place to hide from the rain.
"Get yourselves onto the cart in front." Jadoe slid out of her saddle and jogged to the other three people. All female. Whoever these people were, they were about to be absorbed into the the compound. Acid rain meant things were going south again on the planet and her people would need more genetic diversity to make up for however long it took the earth to come back from the brink of destruction again. A small face peeked over the edge of the cart and Jadoe smiled. The little boy was adorable. A muffled noise had Jadoe looking at a tiny bundle strapped to a raven haired woman's back.
One or more of these women already proved they could have children. They were all bleeding lightly, small pocked wounds on their exposed skin most likely attesting to their claims of acid rain. Hopefully, their bodies hadn't been subjected to more radiation than it could handle; the less medical attention they needed, the better they'd be received by her father. When Jadoe looked over into the edge of their cart, she groaned.
One woman was able to grab all their belongings. What was left in the cart was a badly damaged man. A man that was probably two hundred pounds of unconscious, dead weight muscle. Jadoe tried to stop the two women pulling their dead weight closer to her larger cart. "You need to leave him. He's heavily damaged and will slow us down. Look at the clouds. We probably won't be able to outrun it with just us and the supplies I have." In fact, she was almost positive she could see the leading edge of the acid rain less than a mile from them. The women ignored her, two with children already in the cart with Niylah's supplies while the last two maneuvered their cart so that their back end was to Jadoe's. Despite shaking her head and tying to talk sense into her new genetic contribution, the women ignored her and managed to get the man into the cart they settled into.
"Fuck. What the hell? He's not that important, not if his weight slows us down." Screeching a bit and not caring that it seemed to bother the others, Jadoe ran to the sides of the carts and brought up the thin aluminum sheets that attached to poles she pulled up from the sides of her carts. It would cover the carts and the horses but it would do nothing if the wind continued to pick up and slant the deadly fluid under the metal. She ran up to Rekka, cursed when she spooked the mare, and wound up mounting without managing to calm her.
It didn't take more than a light tap on the mare's sides to get her moving rapidly. Wreck-it followed Rekka, sidestepping the potholes that she did, occasionally prancing and partly rearing. The sound of vegetation beginning to dissolve under the fall of acid rain that was getting closer didn't was probably a quarter of mile behind them, but so much was being destroyed that it made the destruction seem closer. It was going to over take them, they were still roughly half an hour away at the speed they were traveling and if Jadoe could keep the horses calm through the rain, it would take even longer.
"Do any of you know how to ride?"
A red headed woman nodded. "Good, I need you to get up on the other horse. The rain will overtake us and he needs a rider to help him remain calm or we'll have to leave that cart and mount behind." The woman jumped out of the cart and swiftly mounted Wreck-it with a speed and agility that indicated she was a proficient rider. That would help; the animal was so distracted by the noise and smell around them that he would respond well to a skilled rider.
When the rain finally overtook them, most of the group let out a distressed noise. The sound of rain hitting the metal was something the horses had been trained to hear, but the hissing and panicked sounds of animals fleeing ahead of the rain or attempting to burrow to safety was a cacophony of noise they'd never been subjected to before. The smell of burned flesh was soon over powering. Most took any loose fabric they had and covered the lower half of their faces; it did little to help.
Fifteen minutes from safety, the wind caught up to the leading edge of the storm and began gusting rain horizontally under the metal covers. The babe was well protected by one of the women, but the other child would occasionally cry out when splashes of the acid rain managed to splatter on him. The adults bore down on the pain; if they didn't stay calm and move forward, they would die. The two riding had to fight to keep the horses from bolting in a panic.
The vines hiding the plate to the bunker was completely burned away by the time they finally got to it. Jadoe took a cloth and hastily wiped it off before quickly pressing her palm to the plate. Her hand burned for a second but it took a very small amount of time for the system to read it. The doors swung open and Jadoe ushered the horses inside. Another palm reading had the doors slamming shut.
She pulled a keyboard out of the wall and initiated a tentative nuclear fall out protocol. Air would be pumped in from the compound and the doors would remain sealed on a timer for a month until the protocol had been retracted or extended. Finished with that necessity, Jadoe began to strip out of her clothes. She had no way of knowing if any of her outer clothes had droplets of acid rain on them that would eventually eat through the fabric down to her skin.
She could hear the other women following suit, though they were whispering nervously to each other. Down to her bra and underwear, Jadoe ran to the cart and started carefully pulling damaged goods away from the untouched items. The first aid kit had remained remarkably undamaged, so she pulled out a cream that would stop the spread of acid and soothe the pain from the injuries they'd all suffered. Squeezing a generous amount onto her palm, Jadoe tossed the tube to the others. "Put this on your wounds. It will stop the spread and ease some of the pain."
The red head nodded, and Jadoe sighed. They were probably freaked out about the technology. It was probably going to be a problem, but there was nothing she could do about it now. Keeping them peripherally in her sight, Jadoe hooked her arms around the single male they'd insisted on dragging along, and carefully levered him onto the floor.
He had old acid wounds, newer acid wounds, and what appeared to be sword induced injuries that were very recent and still bleeding. He was going to take so many resources to make sure he lived. She didn't know how much treatment for radiation she or the others were going to need. Jadoe would try and leave him behind.